Chapter 5Scene 2

The same. Perseus descends on winged sandals from the clouds. PERSEUS Rocks of the outland jagg`ed with the sea, You slumbering promontories whose huge backs Jut into azure, and thou, O many-thundered Enormous Ocean, hail! Whatever lands Are ramparted with these forbidding shores, Yet if you hold felicitous roofs of men, Homes of delightful laughter, if you have streams Where chattering girls dip in their pitchers cool And dabble their white feet in the chill lapse Of waters, trees and a green-mantled earth, Cicalas noisy in a million boughs Or happy cheep of common birds, I greet you, Syria or Egypt or Ionian shores, Perseus the son of Dana¨e, who long Have sojourned only with the hail-thrashed isles Wet with cold mists and by the boreal winds Snow-swathed. The angry voices of the surf Are welcome to me whose ears have long been sealed By rigorous silence in the snows. O even The wail of mortal misery I choose Rather than that intolerable hush; For this at least is human. Thee I praise, O mother Earth and thy guardian Sea, O Sun Of the warm south nursing fair life of men. I will go down into bee-murmuring fields And mix with men and women in the corn And eat again accustomed food. But first

Perseus the Deliverer This galley shattered on the sharp-toothed rocks I fly to succour. You are grown dear to me, You smiling weeping human faces, brightly Who move, who live, not like those stony masks And Gorgon visions of that monstrous world Beyond the snows. I would not lose you now In the dead surges of the inhuman flood. He descends out of sight. Iolaus enters with Cireas, Dercetes and soldiers. IOLAUS Prepare your ambush, men, amid these boulders, But at the signal, leave your rocky lairs With level bristling points and gyre them in. CIREAS O Poseidon Ennosigaios, man-swallower, earth-shaker, I have swabbed thee for eighteen years. I pray thee tot up the price of those swabbings and be not dishonest with me nor miserly. Eighteen by three hundred and sixty-five by two, that is the sum of them: and forget not the leap years either, O great Poseidon. IOLAUS Into our ambush, for I hear them come. They conceal themselves. Perseus returns with Tyrnaus and Smerdas. PERSEUS Chaldean merchants, would my speed to save Had matched the hawk’s when he swoops down for slaughter. So many beautiful bodies of strong men Lost in the surge, so many eager hopes Of happiness now quenched would still have gladdened The sunlight. Yet for two delightful lives Saved to the stir and motion of the world I praise the Gods that help us.

Act I, Scene 2 TYRNAUS Thou radiant youth Whose face is like a joyous god’s for beauty, Whatever worth the body’s life may have, I thank thee that ’tis saved. Smerdas, discharge That hapless humour from thy lids! If riches Are lost, the body, thy strong instrument To gather riches, is not lost, nor mind, The provident director of its labours. SMERDAS Three thousand pieces of that wealthy stuff, Full forty chests all crammed with noble gems, All lost, all in a moment lost! We are beggars. TYRNAUS Smerdas, not beggared yet of arm or brain. SMERDAS The toil-marred peasant has as much. PERSEUS Merchant, I sorrow for thy loss: all beautiful things Were meant to shine in the bright day, and grievous It is to know the senseless billows play with them. Yet life, most beautiful of all, is left thee. Is not mere sunlight something, and to breathe A joy? Be patient with the gods; they love not Rebellion and o’ertake it with fresh scourgings. SMERDAS O that the sea had swallowed me and rolled In my dear treasure! Tell me, Syrian youth, Are there not divers in these parts, could pluck My wealth from the abyss?

Perseus the Deliverer PERSEUS Chaldean merchant, I am not of this country, but like thyself Hear first today the surf roar on its beaches. SMERDAS Cursed be the moment when we neared its shores! O harsh sea-god, if thou wilt have my wealth, My soul, it was a cruel mercy then to leave This beggared empty body bared of all That made life sweet. Take this too, and everything. IOLAUS (stepping forward) Thy prayer is granted thee, O Babylonian. The soldiers appear and surround Perseus and the merchants. CIREAS All the good stuff drowned! O unlucky Cireas! O greedy Posei- don! SMERDAS Shield us! what are these threatening spear-points? TYRNAUS Fate’s. This is that strange inhospitable coast Where the wrecked traveller in his own warm blood Is given guest-bath. (draws) Death’s dice are yet to throw. IOLAUS Draw not in vain, strive not against the gods. This is the shore near the temple where Poseidon Sits ivory-limbed in his dim rock-hewn house And nods above the bleeding mariner His sapphire locks in gloom. You three are come, A welcome offering to that long dry altar,

Act I, Scene 2 O happy voyagers. Your road is straight To Elysium. PERSEUS An evil and harsh religion You practise in your land, stripling of Syria, Yet since it is religion, do thy will, If thou have power no less than will. And yet I deem that ere I visit death’s calm country, I have far longer ways to tread. TYRNAUS (flinging away his sword) Take me. I will not please the gods with impotent writhing Under the harrow of my fate. They seize Tyrnaus. SMERDAS O wicked fool! You might have saved me with that sword. Ah youth! Ah radiant stranger! help me! thou art mighty. PERSEUS Still, merchant, thou wouldst live? SMERDAS I am dead with terror Of these bright thirsty spears. O they will carve My frantic heart out of my living bosom To throw it bleeding on that hideous altar. Save me, hero! PERSEUS I war not with the gods for thee. From belching fire or the deep-mouthed abyss Of waters to have saved the meanest thing That wears man’s kindly semblance, is a joy.

Perseus the Deliverer But he is mad who for another’s ease Incurs the implacable pursuit of heaven. Yet since each man on earth has privilege To battle even against the gods for life, Sweet life, lift up from earth thy fellow’s sword; I will protect meanwhile thy head from onset. SMERDAS Alas, you mock me! I have no skill with weapons Nor am a fighter. Save me! The Syrians seize Smerdas. Help! I will give thee The wealth of Babylon when I am safe. PERSEUS My sword is heaven’s; it is not to be purchased. Smerdas and Tyrnaus are led away. IOLAUS Take too this radiance. PERSEUS (drawing his sword) Asian stripling, pause. I am not weak of hand nor feeble of heart. Thou art too young, too blithe, too beautiful; I would not disarrange thy sunny curls By any harsher touch than an embrace. IOLAUS I too could wish to spare thy joyous body From the black knife, whoe’er thou art, O stranger. But grim compulsion drives and angry will Of the sea’s lord, chafing that mortal men Insult with their frail keels his rude strong oceans. Therefore he built his grisly temple here, And all who are broken in the unequal war With surge and tempest, though they evade his rocks,

Act I, Scene 2 Must belch out anguished blood upon that altar Miserably. PERSEUS I come not from the Ocean. IOLAUS There is no other way that men could come; For this is ground forbidden to unknown feet. (smiling) Unless these gaudy pinions on thy shoes Were wings indeed to bear thee through the void! PERSEUS Are there not those who ask nor solid land For footing nor the salt flood to buoy their motions? Perhaps I am of these. IOLAUS Of these thou art not. The gods are sombre, terrible to gaze at, Or, even if bright, remote, grand, formidable. But thou art open and fair like our blue heavens In Syria and thy radiant masculine body Allures the eye. Yield! it may be the God Will spare thee. PERSEUS Set on thy war-dogs. Me alive If they alive can take, I am content To bleed a victim. IOLAUS Art thou a demigod To beat back with one blade a hundred spears?

Perseus the Deliverer PERSEUS My sword is in my hand and that shall answer. I am tired of words. IOLAUS Dercetes, wait. His face Is beautiful as Heaven. O dark Poseidon, What wilt thou do with him in thy dank caves Under the grey abysms of the salt flood? Spare him to me and sunlight. Polydaon and Phineus enter from behind. DERCETES Prince, give the order. IOLAUS Let this young sungod live. DERCETES It is forbidden. IOLAUS But I allow it. POLYDAON (coming forward) And when did lenient Heaven Make thee a godhead, Syrian Iolaus, To set thy proud decree against Poseidon’s? Wilt thou rescind what Ocean’s Zeus has ordered? IOLAUS Polydaon — POLYDAON Does a royal name on earth Inflate so foolishly thy mortal pride, Thou evenest thyself with the Olympians?

Act I, Scene 2 Beware, the blood of kings has dropped ere now From the grey sacrificial knife. IOLAUS Our blood! Thou darest threaten me, presumptuous priest? Back to thy blood-stained kennel! I absolve This stranger. POLYDAON Captain, take them both. You flinch? Are you so fearful of the name of prince He plays with? Fear rather dark Poseidon’s anger. PHINEUS Be wise, young Iolaus. Polydaon, Thy zeal outstrips the reverence due to kings. IOLAUS I need not thy protection, Tyrian Phineus: This is my country. He draws. PHINEUS (aside to Polydaon) It were well done to kill him now, his sword Being out against the people’s gods; for then Who blames the god’s avenger? POLYDAON Will you accept, Syrians, the burden of his sacrilege? Upon them for Poseidon! DERCETES Seize them but slay not! Let none dare shed the blood of Syria’s kings.

Perseus the Deliverer SOLDIERS Poseidon! great Poseidon! PERSEUS Iolaus, Rein in thy sword: I am enough for these. He shakes his uncovered shield in the faces of the soldiers: they stagger back covering their eyes. IOLAUS Gods, what a glory lights up Syria! POLYDAON Amazement! Is this a god opposes us? Back, back! CIREAS Master, master, skedaddle: run, run, good King of Tyre, it is scut- tle or be scuttled. Zeus has come down to earth with feathered shoes and a shield made out of phosphorus. He runs off, followed more slowly by Dercetes and the soldiers. PHINEUS Whate’er thou art, yet thou shalt not outface me. He advances with sword drawn. Hast thou Heaven’s thunders with thee too? POLYDAON (pulling him back) Back, Phineus! The fiery-tasselled aegis of Athene Shakes forth these lightnings, and an earthly sword Were madness here. He goes out with Phineus.

Act I, Scene 2 IOLAUS O radiant strong immortal, Iolaus kneels to thee. PERSEUS No, Iolaus. Though great Athene breathes Olympian strength Into my arm sometimes, I am no more Than a brief mortal. IOLAUS Art thou only man? O then be Iolaus’ friend and lover, Who com’st to me like something all my own Destined from other shores. PERSEUS Give me thy hands, O fair young child of the warm Syrian sun. Embrace me! Thou art like a springing laurel Fed upon sunlight by the murmuring waters. IOLAUS Tell me thy name. What memorable earth Gave thee to the azure? PERSEUS I am from Argolis, Perseus my name, the son of Dana¨e. IOLAUS Come, Perseus, friend, with me: fierce entertainment We have given, unworthy the fair joyousness Thou carriest like a flag, but thou shalt meet A kinder Syria. My royal father Cepheus Shall welcome, my mother give thee a mother’s greeting And our Andromeda’s delightful smile

Perseus the Deliverer Persuade thee of a world more full of beauty Than thou hadst dreamed of. PERSEUS I shall yet be glad with thee, O Iolaus, in thy father’s halls, But I would not as yet be known in Syria. Is there no pleasant hamlet near, hedged in With orchard walls and green with unripe corn And washed with bright and flitting waves, where I Can harbour with the kindly village folk And wake to cock-crow in the morning hours, As in my dear Seriphos? IOLAUS Such a village Lurks near our hills, — there with my kind Cydone Thou mayst abide at ease, until thou choose, O Perseus, to reveal thyself to Syria. I too can visit thee unquestioned. PERSEUS Thither Then lead me. I have a thirst for calm obscurity And cottages and happy unambitious talk And simple people. With these I would have rest, Not in the laboured pomp of princely towns Amid pent noise and purple masks of hate. I will drink deep of pure humanity And take the innocent smell of rain-drenched earth, So shall I with a noble untainted mind Rise from the strengthening soil to great adventure. They go out.