CHORUS
CHORUS (entering).
CHORUS.
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Telamonian child, whose hand
Guards our wave-encircled land,
Salamis that breasts the sea,
Good of thine is joy to me;
But if One who reigns above
Smite thee, or if murmurs move
From fierce Danaäns in their hate
Full of threatening to thy state,
All my heart for fear doth sigh,
Shrinking like a dove’s soft eye.
Hardly had the darkness waned,
When our ears were filled and pained
With huge scandal on thy fame.
Telling, thine the arm that came
To the cattle-browsèd mead,
Wild with prancing of the steed,
And that ravaged there and slew
With a sword of fiery hue
All the spoils that yet remain,
By the sweat of spearmen ta’en.
Such report against thy life,
Whispered words with falsehood rife,
Wise Odysseus bringing near
Shrewdly gaineth many an ear:
Since invention against thee
Findeth hearing speedily,
Tallying with the moment’s birth;
And with loudly waxing mirth
Heaping insult on thy grief,
Each who hears it glories more
Than the tongue that told before.
Every slander wins belief
Aimed at souls whose worth is chief:
Shot at me, or one so small,
Such a bolt might harmless fall.
Ever toward the great and high
Creepeth climbing jealousy
Yet the low without the tall
Make at need a tottering wall
Let the strong the feeble save
And the mean support the brave.
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Ah! ’twere vain to tune such song
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’Mid the nought discerning throng
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Who are clamouring now ’gainst thee
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Long and loud, and strengthless we,
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Mighty chieftain, thou away,
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To withstand the gathering fray
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Flocking fowl with carping cry
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Seem they, lurking from thine eye,
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Till the royal eagle’s poise
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Overawe the paltry noise
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Till before thy presence hushed
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Sudden sink they, mute and crushed.
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Did bull slaying Artemis, Zeus’ cruel daughter
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(Ah, fearful rumour, fountain of my shame!)
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Prompt thy fond heart to this disastrous slaughter
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Of the full herd stored in our army’s name!
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Say, had her blood stained temple missed the kindness
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Of some vow promised fruit of victory,
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Foiled of some glorious armour through thy blindness,
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Or fell some stag ungraced by gift from thee?
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Or did stern Ares venge his thankless spear
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Through this night foray that hath cost thee dear!
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For never, if thy heart were not distracted
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By stings from Heaven, O child of Telamon,
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Wouldst thou have bounded leftward, to have acted
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Thus wildly, spoiling all our host hath won!
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Madness might fall some heavenly power forfend it
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But if Odysseus and the tyrant lords
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Suggest a forged tale, O rise to end it,
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Nor fan the fierce flame of their withering words!
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Forth from thy tent, and let thine eye confound
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The brood of Sisyphus that would thee wound!
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Too long hast thou been fixed in grim repose,
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Heightening the haughty malice of thy foes,
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That, while thou porest by the sullen sea,
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Through breezy glades advanceth fearlessly,
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A mounting blaze with crackling laughter fed
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From myriad throats; whence pain and sorrow bred
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Within my bosom are establishèd.
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