Produced by Thierry Alberto, Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net ERECHTHEUS: A TRAGEDY. BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ἰοστέφανοι καὶ ἀοίδιμοι Ἑλλάδος ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι δαιμόνιον πτολίεθρον. PIND. _Fr._ 47. ΑΤ. τίς δὲ ποιμάνωρ ἔπεστι κἀπιδεσπόζει στρατοῦ; ΧΟ. οὔτινος δοῦλοι κέκληνται φωτὸς οὐδ' ὑπηκόοι. ÆSCH. _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. This shalt thou 40 Sustain not, nor thy son endure to see, Nor thou to live and look on; for the womb Bare me not base that bare me miserable, To hear this loud brood of the Thracian foam Break its broad strength of billowy-beating war