_Sar._ At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose The Hunter and the Crone; and smiling on me-- Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of The Hunter smiled upon me--I should say, His lips, for his eyes moved not--and the woman's Thin lips relaxed to something like a smile. Both rose, and the crowned figures on each hand Rose also, as if aping their chief shades-- Mere mimics even in death--but I sate still: A desperate courage crept through every limb, 140 And at the last I feared them not, but laughed Full in their phantom faces. But then--then The Hunter laid his hand on mine: I took it, And grasped it--but it melted from my own; While he too vanished, and left nothing but The memory of a hero, for he looked so. _Myr._ And was: the ancestor of heroes, too, And thine no less. _Sar._ Aye, Myrrha, but the woman, The female who remained, she flew upon me, And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses; 150 And, flinging down the goblets on each hand, Methought their poisons flowed around us, till Each formed a hideous river. Still she clung; The other phantoms, like a row of statues, Stood dull as in our temples, but she still Embraced me, while I shrunk from her, as if, In lieu of her remote descendant, I Had been the son who slew her for her incest.[25] Then--then--a chaos of all loathsome things Thronged thick and shapeless: I was dead, yet feeling-- 160 Buried, and raised again--consumed by worms, Purged by the flames, and withered in the air! I can fix nothing further of my thoughts, Save that I longed for thee, and sought for thee, In all these agonies,--and woke and found thee. _Myr._ So shalt thou find me ever at thy side, Here and hereafter, if the last may be. But think not of these things--the mere creations Of late events, acting upon a frame Unused by toil, yet over-wrought by toil-- 170 Such as might try the sternest. _Sar._ I am better. Now that I see thee once more, _what was seen_ Seems nothing. _Enter_ SALEMENES. _Sal._ Is the king so soon awake? _Sar._ Yes, brother, and I would I had not slept; For all the predecessors of our line Rose up, methought, to drag me down to them. My father was amongst them, too; but he, I know not why, kept from me, leaving me Between the hunter-founder of our race, And her, the homicide and husband-killer, 180 Whom you call glorious. _Sal._ So I term you also, Now you have shown a spirit like to hers. By day-break I propose that we set forth, And charge once more the rebel crew, who still Keep gathering head, repulsed, but not quite quelled.