l^o7d CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Joseph Whitmore Barry dramatic library THB GIFT OF TWO FRIENDS OF Cornell University 1934 Cornell University Library PS 3525.A1802S3 3 1924 021 771 484 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021771484 BY PERCYMACKAYE Theatre Eidition BY PERCY MACKAYE The Canteriury Pilgrims. A Comedy. Fenris, the fVolf. A Tragedy. Jeanne D'Arc. Sappho and Phaon. nniform, i2mo. $1.25 net, each. SAPPHO AND PHAON •The o. MADAME KALICH As Sappho. Act 1. SAPPHO AND PHAON A Tragedy m PERCY MACKAYE WebJ gorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1907 All rights reserved A;/ 1 tut/ 8 Copyright, 1907, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1907. J. S. Pushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO MARION avv /Ml wive, (Twrj^a, trvvipa, o-u<7Tc^avij<^dp£t, avv juoi fjuxivo/j.fvia fualvio, avv am^povi aox^pova. NOTE TO THEATRE EDITION This volume constitutes the text of Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske's production of " Sappho and Phaon " for Madame Kalich and her company, and consists of that main portion of my published play entitled The Tragedy. The other portions — Prologue, In- duction, Prelude, Interludes, and Epilogue — which form an archaeological setting for The Tragedy, or play proper, it has been decided in the present pro- duction to omit; not because they are considered by manager or author as impractical for use in the theatre, or as disproportionate in relation to the whole, but because the results of their inclusion were not deemed sufficiently predictable to warrant their pro- duction at this time. And in this decision the author has heartily concurred. The incidental music — choral and lyrical — has been composed by Professor A. A. Stanley, of the University of Michigan, and may be had in published form. Percy MacKaye. October,'\iyi']. PROGRAMME AS FIRST PERFORMED IN NEW YORK CITY AT THE LYRIC THEATRE, OCTOBER 21, 1907 BERTHA KALICH In Harrison Grey Fiske*s Production of SAPPHO AND PHAON A Tragedy, in Three Acts By PERCY MACKAYE CAST OF CHARACTERS Phaon . . Henry Kolker Alcseus Fred Eric Pittacus . , . , Lucius Henderson Bion . Gladys Hulette Priest of Poseidon .... . . R. M. Dolliver Sappho . Bertha Kalich Anactoria ... Hazel MacKaye Atthis Jessie F. Glendenning Thalassa .... . Adele Block Girl Disciples, Sea Slaves, Acolytes, etc., by Misses Coburn, Krall, Lowell, Rich, Carlisle, Bayless, Richmond, Lake, Harris, McElroy, Ibbotson, Sinclair, Tremont; Messrs. Gordon, Morris, Williams, Oliver, Pullman, Kavanagh, Van Valer, Keough, Costello, Ryan, Ribblet, Fontaine, Crooks, Baldwin, Brady, Primrose, Young, Dult, Clark, Whitehead, Keeley, Carroll, and Alexander. The Scene, laid on the Greek island of Lesbos near Asia Minor, represents a high promontory overlooking the i^gean Sea, near the ancient city of Mitylene. On the right of the spectator is the colonnade of a Doric temple; in the centre the altar of the Goddess Aphrodite; at the left, the altar of the sea-god Poseidon. The time of the action is about 600 B.C. ACT I — Late afternoon, ACT II — Evening of same day. ACT III — Dawn of the following morning. The music incidental to the tragedy composed by A. A. Stanley, A.M. The scenery painted by Gates and Morange and constructed by the George W Ormston Company. The costumes designed by Percy Anderson and made by E. S. Freisinger, The properties by Edward Siedle. The electric effects by Kliegl Brothers and John Higham. EXECUTIVE STAFF FOR^k. FISKE J. Duke Murray Theodore T. Frankenberg Robert Milton . R. M. Dolliver George H. Wiseman Robert B. Ross John Higham Edward Kern . Mrs. Mattie Hoover . Business Manager Advance Representative Stage Manager Assistant Stage Manager . Musical Director Carpenter Electrician Property Man Wardrobe Mistress THE TRAGEDY KOI irofl^o) Kal fiAoiua . . . dWo, irav roXiwrov. . • • — Sapphonis Fragmenta, B^ 8' oKewv irapa (Tiva TToXuiXoto-fioio fioXao-o-ijs. „. , r ACT I Scene: A high promontory, overlooking the yEgean sea, sprinkled with isles. On the left, pillars of a Doric temple form a colonnade which, stretching away left, disappears behind tall cypresses. Behind these columns, tapestries of dark azure hide the whole wall of the temple, concealing the doorway. Against the background, the contours of the pillars themselves rise vast and chaste into the ob- scurity of foliage — their capitals lost among ancient boughs. Near the centre of the scene, at back, against the side wall of the temple, built on a raised and jutting rock and ap- proached by steps from the colonnade, stands an altar of yellow marble, in which is sculptured a flying dove. Below this altar of Aphrodite, the foreground on the right juts upward to it in contours of the bare, weathered rock of the promontory ; in this, a worn crevice, near the centre of the scene, indicates the beginning of a sheer cliff-path, which descends the precipice to the unseen beach, the far sound of whose breakers, in ceaseless cadence, rising murmurous from below, catches the ear in pauses of the action. Near the cliff-path, a fire-urn, upheld by sculptured Nereids. On the right, the seascape is defined by a grove of olive trees, which grow near to the foreground. 63 64 SAPPHO AND PHAON- On the edge of this grove, chiselled in colossal proportions out of yellow marble, rises a statue of Aphrodite, con- ceived with the naive, pre-classic simplicity of an age still half Homeric. Similarly, on the left, a statue of Poseidon. These images do not obtrude themselves, but partly withdrawn in foliage, their large presences overshadow in silence the action of the Tragedy. As this scene is disclosed to view, voices of women are heard singing in unison within the temple. THE VOICES Builders, build the roof -beam high : Hyme7icBon ! More than mortal comes the man ; HymencBon ! But the maiden like a maid, Rose-pale, rose-red, Kala, O Chariessa ! \From the temple appears Anactoria. She looks away, right, then turning to depart, left, encounters Atthis entering.^ ANACTORIA So late ? ATTHIS O Anactoria ! ANACTORIA Our lady Sappho hath bade me look for thee. — Not weeping ! THE TRAGEDY 65 ATTHIS He hath not come ! My eyes are water-blind With staring on the sea, in hopes to espy His scarlet sail slope from the mainland. Still No sign — no little gleam — of Larichus. Thou happy Atthis ANACTORIA ATTHIS Happy ? But to-morrow — ANACTORIA To-morrow you shall wed with Sappho's brother, And win for sister the bright Lesbian Muse, Who hath herself composed your bridal-hymn, And he that is Poseidon's cup-bearer Shall be your husband. ATTHIS Shall I not, then, weep Because he does not come 1 Three days ago He sailed for Lydia, to fetch me home Pearls for our bridal. Oh, I want not pearls. Nor any gift but Larichus, his love. ANACTORIA Why, he will come. To-night the moon is full, The .ifEgean calm. — What's this } 66 SAPPHO AND PHAON ATTHIS I had forgot. As I climbed up from Mitylene here, I met Alcaeus, and he gave me this To bring — ANACTORIA Alcaeus ? Give it me ! \She snatches a vase from Atthisl\ Dear gods, Let not this trembling quake the promontory And topple temple and all into the waves. Daylight and dark ! — Alceeus sends me this. ATTHIS [ Gazes away, sighing.'\ O little clouds, why are ye shaped like sails .' ANACTORIA Fresh from his hands — himself the potter! Here's A painted vine, and under the ripe grapes A dove hath wove her nest among the verses. Verses and vase — poem and painter — mine ! [She kisses the verse and reads.] ' The sea-god breathes his heart in the sea-shell. And leaves it on the sands, to syllable One sound forever. O maid of Lesbos, murmuring one name Within this vase, thy lover's lips have vowed Passion eternal.' THE TRAGEDY 67 [ With sudden abandon, she springs to Atthis and embraces her.] My Atthis, thou hast brought to me in this More precious medicine than ever healed Fever and ague. ATTHIS I? ANACTORIA You do not guess ; Of late I have been damned with jealousy That almost made me hate him. ATTHIS \_Appalled.'] Larichus } ANACTORIA No, no, you doting bride : Alcseus. Quick, What said he when he bade you bring me this } ATTHIS But that is not for you. — Ah ! twist me not ! Thou hurtest my arm. ANACTORIA Speak, then ! ATTHIS What should I say ? ANACTORIA Whom is this for } 68 SAPPHO AND PHAON ATTHIS For Sappho. ANACTORIA \_Loosing Atthis, with a cry.'\ She it was ! \_Sinks crouching upon the steps.\ Atthis ! ALC^US \_Calls outside^ ATTHIS \_To Anactoria.'] My friend ! I did not guess. — Forgive ! {^Enter, left, Alc^us. He addresses Atthis, who stands before Anactoria.'] ALCiEUS Hath Sappho seen it ? Hast thou shown it her ? What did she say ? ANACTORIA \Holding the vase, rises.] Your lady's in the temple. Training the chorus of her girl-disciples. This votive urn of incense from your lips Hath not yet breathed in her delicate ear " Passion eternal ! " THE TRAGEDY 69 Came you with this ? ALC^US By Hephaestus, how ANACTORIA Oh, by Alcseus, how Came this to you : this mad, this hollow love ? Look ! " Maid of Lesbos, murmuring one name Within this vase, thy lover's lips " — And are Sappho and Anactoria one name ? How ardent hast thou murmured that one name Up at my casement : " Anactoria ! " Now hers to her ! No other eyes but Sappho's Had done it ! — Atthis, that it should be she Whom best I love, our mistress and our muse. Hath drawn him from me ! So she draws the world, Day, evening, and the dawn, to wait on her — Maiden and man, like an immortal. ALCiEUS So Love draws us all. ANACTORIA Not all ! To some of us Love beacons like a star. ALC^US {Smiling^ A shooting-star ! That nightly fills anew his fiery quiver ! 70 SAPPHO AND PHAOAT ANACTORIA And this is thou — Alcasus ! O this air Goes black and red between us. Fare you well ; But when your Sappho comes here from the singing, Take her your gift — [From the height of the steps, she flings the vase at his feet, dashing it in pieces.^ and when you lift it up, Tell her it is the heart of her girl-friend. \_Exit, right.'\ ALC^US [7b Atthis.'\ Nothing of this to Sappho ! ATTHIS Dost thou deem Others as false as thou art ? She shall know, ALC^US [Springing up the steps.'X But Atthis — \_Exit Atthis within the temple.^ If she tells her ! \_Watching persons approach, he starts violently.'] Pittacus ! {^Enter, left, Pittacus, followed by a soldier, to whom he speaks.] THE TRAGEDY 71 PITTACUS Say to the citizens, I will not hold Council to-day. The sea-wind blows too sweet Of lentisk and of samphire for my thoughts To brood on war ; the eyes of Sappho are A mightier tyranny than Mitylene. — Wait ; it were wiser to omit that last. \_Exit the soldier.'\ ALC^US O seven wise men of the world in one ! Most civic lover — to omit that last ! PITTACUS Greeting, Alcaeus ! ALC^US Pittacus is gone To smell the south wind. Therefore, citizens, Adjourn the council ! It were wiser not Allude to tyranny and Sappho's eyes, For Pittacus, elected by the people. Must keep one eye or two for votes. Enough, He hath a nose enamoured of the south wind ! What was that odorous phrase ? — Lentisk and sam- phire ! PITTACUS Alcaeus still is young. ALC^US And Pittacus a lover ! What says Archilochus : " Lovers that stink of leeks Put samphire in their songs," 72 SAPPHO AND PHAON PITTACUS In temper temperance, My friend. ALCyEUS In lack of sense Sententiousness, O sage! How is philosophy Selling per pound ? I mean Without the fat, of course. PITTACUS Is not this feud too old For us to blow up fire In the ashes 1 ALCiEUS 'Tis as old As when you, gutter-tyrant, Imprisoned me — a noble And knight of Lesbos. PITTACUS For Sedition. Yet it seems You now go free. ALCyEUS Bright gods. Witness this gentle tyrant ! Look where the shouting people Crown him with garlic leaves ; THE TRAGEDY 73 For he hath freed from prison Alcseus the seditious ! Hail him Magnanimous, And grant him in the Assembly — A thousand extra votes ! PITTACUS Sir, you go far. ALC^US Nay, grant him For that great-minded deed, Fair Sappho's admiration ! PITTACUS Insolence ! ALC.EUS Hypocrite ! PITTACUS [Raising his staff."] Go! ALC^US Sniggling demagogue ! [Enter, right, Phaon — his shoulders stooped beneath a burden of drift-ivood. Moving toward the temple, his path lies between Alcceus and Pittacus.'\ PITTACUS Thou, swollen-up with words And bitter wind, presumptuous Fop — 74 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC^US Mule of Mitylene, Bray ! Let the temple fillies Hark to thy hee-haw. PITTACUS Zeus, Chastise this man ! [^Striking at Alcceus, who springs back, the staff of Pittacus falls and breaks upon Phaon, who receives the blow with mute passivity and passes on to the temple. Pittacus slowly lets fall the pieces of his staffs Eternal Zeus, thy hand Hath interposed this slave. Look where he goes, Alcaeus ; dumb, submissive, yet my blow Fell undeserved. ALC^US A pack-beast ! PITTACUS True ; and yet His silence hath a peace majestical, His unresistingness, an awe ! 'Tis we That, by comparison, are petty : we That for a snarling ideality Yelp at each other like Actaeon's dogs To tear our master — our own self-command. Ah, passionless indifference ! That we Might rather live like yonder sea-drudge, callous To quickening beauty, and incapable Of joy or anguish of imagination, Than thus in bondage of enamour'd pain THE TRAGEDY 75 For that immortal being, Sappho, rage Vituperate and scorn each other, clutch'd Mind against mind, man against man, to possess her. ALC^US \Cynically.\ Still you remain to rage. PITTACUS No ; fare you well, Alcaeus: go you in to Sappho first And I will come hereafter. Better were it — Far better than this venom'd wrangling — there From Aphrodite's rock into the sea For us to adventure the Leucadian leap : That leap which brings to passionate lovers — death. Or from the goddess, ultimate repose. \_He passes from the scene, right. Alcceus stands for a moment, moved by his words. Within the temple voices once more lift up the Sapphic hymn. Then from the temple emerge, singing, the Girl-Disciples of Sappho, and pass, left, away toward Mitylene. Sappho herself, followed at a little distance by Atthis, comes slowly down the steps, twining a fillet of violets, lost in the music. Seeing her, Alcceus approaches, passionate, but pauses — abashed by her presence.] THE GIRI^DISCIPLES Gath'rers, what have ye forgot Hymenczon ! Blushing ripe on the end of the bough .' Hymenceon ! 76 SAPPHO AND PHAOAT Ripe now, but ye may not reach, For the bride is won, and the groom is strong. Kala, O Chariessa! [£xeunf.'] ALCJEUS Lady of violets and reverie, Sappho — I long to speak, but shame restrains me. SAPPHO Alcaeus, had your thoughts been beautiful, Nor any double-speech upon your tongue, Shame would not turn away your eyes from mine ; You would have spoken simply to me now. ALC^US It is not simple to say beautifully What I would say. — Hast thou, in Mitylene, Watched the young market-maidens weaving fillets Of wild flowers ? Know you what men say 'tis sign of ? SAPPHO Is it a sign ? ALCJEUS That all such are in love. Truly they are but country maids, and yet Persephone herself was such a girl Weaving Aer wild-flowers when dark Pluto plucked her. Lady, you too are weaving : may I ask For whom .•" THE TRAGEDY yy SAPPHO [Holding out the fillet.'] And if I answered — for Alcaeus ? ALCiEUS [Ardent.'] Sappho ! SAPPHO [ Withholding the fillet.] And if I gave this — to another ! [Stooping, she lifts a fragment of the broken vase and reads.] " Within this vase thy lovet's lips have vowed" — The vow itself is cracked : how came it broken ? ALCy^US [Bitterly.] Atthis hath told thee ! SAPPHO Anactoria Is dear to me. ALCiEUS But she should understand : I loved her, and I love her now no more. Well, if for this she weeps, let her revile The god, not me. — Can I constrain a god 1 Tether him .-' Clip his wings ? Say 'come' or 'go' ? Love is a voyager, and like the wind That shakes awhile the summer woods with music Moves on, to stir the hearts of unknown bowers. 78 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO O love in man ! How then in woman ? What If Anactoria had scorned Alcaeus ? Is there a god and eke a goddess Love : The one all vagrant, lawless, unrestrained, Self-seeking ardour ? The other — all compassion 'd Submissive constancy ? How would it fare With us, Alcaeus, had you won my love And I should prove untrue ? \From the right, Anactoria enters and rejoins Atthis at the steps of the shrine. There, while Atthis seeks gently to distract her, she keeps her eyes fixed in passionate brood- ing upon Sappho and Alcceus. The latter is about to reply to Sappho, when she stays him with a smile and gesture.^ It matters not. Love is indeed goddess and god, and man And woman, and the world ! What shall it boot To argue with the shy anemone. Or reason with the rose ? — This air is spring, And on this isle of flowers we all are lovers. ALC^US Ah, then you love me, Sappho ! SAPPHO ALC^US Even by this speech of thine. By what token ? THE TRAGEDY 79 SAPPHO Eyes are the tongues Of lovers, and their speech is light, not sound, Therefore you know not Love's infallible Tokens. ALC^EUS But tell me ! SAPPHO Grant it then — I love you : Then, were it so, what need had you to ask ? For should I see you but a little instant. Then is my voice choked and my tongue is broken ; Under my flesh quick fire runs flame and quivers ; My eyes look blank on darkness ; sounds of roaring Sing in mine ears ; chiller than death the frore dews Dan ken my limbs, and pale as grass in autumn, I tremble. Are the tokens manifest ? \From the temple reenters Phaon without his burden. As Sappho turns her face archly from Akmus, her eyes fall upon the slave, who, oblivious, with dreamy gaze fixed upon the sea, approaches and passes her by, silent as a sleep-walker. Following his figure unconsciously with her look, Sappho — with rapid gradation changing in mood and aspect — begins to show visibly the tokens she has been describing, till overwhelming faintness closes her eyes.'\ 8o SAPPHO AND PHAON ALCyEUS Why do you mock me, lady ? Pain of hope, Pain of desire are punishment enough, Without your irony. — Gods, thou art pale ! What is it, Sappho ? Ha! thou hast «o^ mocked me! You tremble : Nay, poor fool, me — happy fool ! Now, now I understand. SAPPHO \Faintly.\ Not now. ALC^US \With lowered voice.] I know ; Eyes only speak, and yours are eloquent ; They follow yonder slave to where she stands Watching us there. — Her jealousy is mad ; Let it not move thee ; it can touch us not ; And what are we to Anactoria That — lean on me ! \J7e reaches to support Sappho, whose eyes have closed. Exit Phaon, right] SAPPHO Later — to-night. ALC^US But Sappho — THE TRAGEDY 8 1 SAPPHO Under the stars to-night ; here, by the temple — \Slowly, looking away right^ When there are no slaves passing. ALCy^US \Kissing her robe.\ Till to-night ! \_He departs by the colonnade, exultant. Sappho stands silent, shaken by deep breaths of a great emotion. Anactoria, whose eyes have never left Sappho's face, seeing her now alone, leaves Atthis who seeks fearfully to detain her by catching at a lyre which Anactoria carries rigidly in her arm.'] ATTHIS Wait ; let me play to thee ! [Unheeding, Anactoria approaches Sappho and comes very close, before Sappho, opening her arms with a glad start, embraces her.] SAPPHO My 'Toria. [Allowing Sappho to drarv her face close to hers, Anactoria speaks then in a tense, low voice. Before she has finished speaking, she springs loose, with a spuming gesture.] ANACTORIA Oh, that I were a beast on the wild hills, And I had borne thee to my twilight lair Alive, and there had bitten thee to death, And dabbled all thy beauty in the dew — And he to look upon it ! 82 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO 'Toria ! ANACTORIA IWildly.'^ Oh, call me not that name ; it is too dear. So did you call me first that silver night Below your orchard, when you taught me first To strike this plectron on this lyre. — You kissed me And cried : " Well played, my 'Toria ! " SAPPHO And so I'll kiss thee, dear, a thousand silver nights. ANACTORIA [Holding the plectron like a da^ereti] Come not so close ; I'll scratch thy cheek with this, And stencil in thy blood Alcaeus' name. That all may read how Sappho loved her friend. SAPPHO [To Atthis.] And so for this she would she were a beast To dabble all my beauty in the dew ! [Turning to Anactoria with gentle laughter. '\ O girl ! ANACTORIA I heard you bid him come to-night. THE TRAGEDY 83 SAPPHO I said to-night ? ANACTORIA Wilt thou deny it ? SAPPEIO Let Alcaeus come to-night, then. I will be Punctual to his coming, and if thou Hast deemed me ever a wise art-mistress, trust me To teach him such a lesson then in love As he shall long remember — for thy sake. Come, wilt thou love thine old friend — one night more ? ANACTORIA \_Going to her and embracing her knees. \ O dear and mighty ! Thou art not as we. SAPPHO A goddess once again .'' No cheeks, eyes, elbows To be restored .-' Why, truly, then, these poets Are wise who sing : " Hail, Sappho, thou tenth Muse ! " Therefore rise up, sweet mortal, and attend How I shall prove my Musehood by a song. \Taking the lyre from Anactorta.] Hand me the plectron. — Atthis, sit with us Here. 'Tis a Linus-song for vintagers To chant in autumn. Therefore, 'Toria, If thou wilt weep, weep not for Cupid, but Adonis. — Kiss me ! Now this will I sing Deftly to please my girl-friends. 84 SAPPHO AND PHAON \Sappho is seated on the marble bench, right; Atthis on the ground before her. Anactoria, standing beside the bench, turns away while Sappho sings and, overcome with restrained weeping, steals off through the colonnade. Meantime, from the right, JPittacus has appeared and stands listening, unseen^ What shall we do, Cytherea ? Tender Adonis is dying ! What shall we do ? Rend, rend your delicate tunics, Rend, rend your breasts, O my maidens : Weep — Ai le nu! \_Looking after Anactoria.'\ Poor jealousy ! — Run, fetch her back to us, And take her this. ATTHIS [Taking the lyre from Sappho.\ I fear she will not come. \JExit?\ PITTACUS [Approaches Sappho with hesitating deference. \ Clear voice of Lesbos — SAPPHO \Turning?\ Lord of Mitylene ! THE TRAGEDY 85 PITTACUS Lady, in Athens, the last time I met Solon, the tyrant, he was in his garden, And where he sat the almond-blossoms fell On his white hair. He had thrown his parchments down And looked on me with eyes that saw me not. For near him stood a slender, thrush-voiced boy Gushing a song. And when the boy had ceased, " Whose song was that .' " he asked. The boy said, " Sappho's : " And Solon, speaking low, said : " Sing that only ! So that I may not die before I learn it." SAPPHO Solon was wise ; my songs are beautiful. PITTACUS For they are you. Sappho, I also am Tyrant and lawgiver. My function 'tis In war and peace to engineer this isle. And through the level conduits of the mind To irrigate the state with the still waters Of reason ; I have schooled and flogged my will With the iron whips of Sparta ; and my words Are sown abroad for wisdom ; yet — O hear me ! Thy voice hath loosed in me a thousand streams That overleap their banks, and inundate My ordered world with passion ; vain it is I strive to dam those springs ; their foaming tides 86 SAPPHO AND PHAON Burst into glorious laughter, and I drown Rapturous ; vain it is I charge my soul — This love is madness, peril and despair ! I know that it is madness — yet I love you. SAPPHO Are you, then, mad ? Does not supreme desire Beget the supreme joy ? This engineered. Wise-ordered state of yours — when you have cast Its lovers forth on some bleak lepers' rock In the barren sea ; when you have builded all Its solemn temples of serenity. And sculptured on its gates your city's god — The massy image of Indifference ; When you have set up in the public ways Fountains of running reason, where cold virgins And silent boys, with philosophic beards. Fill their chaste pitchers, and turn dumbly home To tipple with their grandsires — tell me, then ! Will you not fear, some day, an insurrection. When those same boys and girls, with flying hair And eyes aflame, shall drag you in the market And cry : " Our lovers ! Give us back our lovers ! Give us our mad joys and our loves again ! " PITTACUS Sappho, the wild bees of Persuasion hive Between your lips. Call me what name you will : Sage — madman ; only take from me my gift In love. THE TRAGEDY %y As mine ? SAPPHO What do you offer ? PITTACUS SAPPHO PITTACUS To rule with me. Mitylene. SAPPHO Is not such rather A man's, not woman's office ? PITTACUS Yours alone Of women ! See, a little while ago I brought this staff to you : you were in the temple. And here I met Alcseus ; here for you We wrangled, and in wrath I lifted this And left it — so. SAPPHO Heigh me ! A vase, a sceptre : And now both dashed in pieces at my feet ! Surely this Sappho is a stony image And not a maid, to shatter such love-tokens. You struck Alcaeus ? Fell on a passing slave. PITTACUS No, by chance the blow 88 SAPPHO AND PHAON You said — a slave ? SAPPHO PITTACUS A sea-drudge With drift-wood for Poseidon's Night-fire. SAPPHO \Breathing quick.'\ Give me the pieces. His flesh, you say .-" PITTACUS His flesh ? It did not strike Alcaeus ! SAPPHO [Feeling the staff's splintered et^e.] No, but his bare flesh I On His shoulder ? PITTACUS It struck only The slave. SAPPHO [ Quivering.'] The bright blood started I THE TRAGEDY 89 PITTACUS There sprang no blood, dear lady ; the staff broke Against the fagots on the fellow's shoulder. — All for mere words ! Alcaeus had but gibed me With foolish words. Judge now if I have need Of you, to sway the staff of Mitylene. SAPPHO \After a brief pause."] True, Pittacus ; why should we not splice these In one, and wield this staff together .'' Grant I'm but a slave, being but woman ; yet If you, that are the maker of your law. If you detect in me this civic gift Surpassing woman, shall you not then leap This breach of sex, and make me your true mate — Greatly your wife and lover .■• PITTACUS Speak with pity ! Let me not doubt I hear this. SAPPHO Hear it well, For I wofuld reason, too : A slave, I said. But — turn the tables ! You are now the slave (No maid as I, but such a bondman, say. As that same drift-wood bearer whom you struck), And I am maiden-tyrant of Mitylene, Over all Lesbos lawgiver of love. go SAPPHO AND PHAON PITTACUS Even as thou art ! SAPPHO Why then, you poor base slave, If I detect in your sea-sinew'd limbs Olympian graces nioving, if I see Far in your cold deep eyes daemonic fire Outburning the eye-glance of a faun in love, If I behold in you, outcast, my kin Congenial spirit, may I not reach to you My tyrant's staff, and raise you at my side — No more a thing for men to scorn, but now Greatly my lord and lover ? PITTACUS What would . . . ? SAPPHO Wait! Or must I now because I am a woman, Forego the tyrant's great prerogative — To make mine own law ? PITTACUS Sappho, but to what Leads this? I do not follow you. SAPPHO It leads To the Golden Age. If you would get my love, Follow me there. \Tuming away, Sappho springs to the steps of Aphrodite's shrine. "] THE TRAGEDY 91 PITTACUS Have you, then, only mocked me ? Am I to come no more ? SAPPHO [Pausing. J Nay, Pittacus, I have but mocked myself. Come when you will. PITTACUS To-night ? Under these olives ? SAPPHO When you will ; And so, good-by ! Oh, you have given me thoughts To make the woman tremble in me. PITTACUS Sappho ! [ With a gesture of love toward her, as she turns again to the steps, he departs, left. Sappho, having mounted to the shrine, prostrates herself before it; then — facing the yEgean, seated, her arms about her knees, plastic, silent — gazes down upon the waves. From the colonnade Atthis enters and searches about with her eyes.] ATTHIS Where art thou, Sappho 1 [Discovering her, Atthis ascends the steps.'] Anactoria Is wilful, and she swears she will not come Again, till she has sought Alcseus out 92 SAPPHO AND PHAON And dragged him to thy scorn. — Thou hast not heard me. Sweet mistress, here is Atthis. What hath happened That like an image thou sittst staring t She is calling me. SAPPHO [/« a low voice. '\ ATTHIS Who calls .? SAPPHO ATTHIS \StartingP\ Hark! My mother. Sappho SAPPHO Dost thou not hear her sob and sing below us ? Her hollow lute is turquoise, and she touches The silver strings of ever-roaring reefs Far off to sound her awful lullaby ; And while she croons, between her foaming breasts — Like infants at their milk — Hyperion lies And heaving Triton dreams. Us too, us mortals, She suckles there, and there she buries us. ATTHIS What new hymn art thou musing ? SAPPHO Listen again ! Oh, such a sobbing cry did Thetis make That night she rose beside the blood-starr'd beach THE TRAGEDY 93 Of Troy, to her great son Achilles, ere He died. Me, too, she calls : I sink, I sink ! Atthis, I have heard the whirling cliff-birds scream. And watched my breaths burst up through the green wave In moons of opal fire. ATTHIS ' I am afraid ; Is it some goddess calls thee ? SAPPHO 'Tis the sea, The teeming, terrible, maternal sea That spawned us all. She calls me back to her, But I will not go. Her womb hath brought me forth A child defiant. I will be free of her ! Her ways are birth, fecundity, and death. But mine are beauty and immortal love. Therefore I will be tyrant of myself — Mine own law will I be ! And I will make Creatures of mind and melody, whose forms Are wrought of loveliness without decay. And wild desire without satiety. And joy and aspiration without death ; And on the wings of those shall I, I, Sappho ! Still soar and sing above these cliffs of Lesbos, Even when ten thousand blooms of men and maids Are fallen and withered — there. [Peering below, she touches Atthis^ arm and points.'] What man is that? 94 SAPPHO AND PHAON ATTHIS Where ? SAPPHO There, beneath us, where the cliff-path leaves The beach. See, he is climbing toward our faces. ATTHIS I am dizzy. SAPPHO He is clinging to the rock Of garnet, where the sea-doves build their nests. He is reaching over it. — Atthis, he will fall ! ATTHIS I see him now — a fisherman : his net Is over his shoulder. SAPPHO He hath seized it, look • A young dove ! And he brings it in the net. ATTHIS A slave. SAPPHO Know you his name .' ATTHIS His name is Fhaon. THE TRAGEDY 95 SAPPHO {Slowly.^ Phaon ! And so 'tis Phaon ! and forever ' Sappho and Phaon.' ATTHIS Dost thou muse again ? SAPPHO When lovers' names are born, their syllables Fall like the snowflakes of Apollo's tears, That crystallize in song. \Murtnuring.'\ — Sappho and Phaon ! ATTHIS 'Tis not a slave like others. You have heard What the old sea-wives whisper. SAPPHO No. ATTHIS Of him Aphrodite ? SAPPHO {^Eagerly-I Nay, what do they whisper .' 96 SAPPHO AND PHAON ATTHIS They say that once, when Phaon was a boy, One twilight, when the -(Egean was uptorn By mighty wind and thunder, and the fish-folk Prayed in their harbours — at the tempest's height, Appeared upon the beach an old, poor woman And begged a passage to the mainland. None Heard her but scoffed or cursed her ; only Phaon Unloosed his boat, and rowed her through the storm To Lydia. At dawn, when he returned. His look was altered and he spoke strange things ; How, when his boat reached mainland, the poor hag Had cast her cloak and sprung, with burning limbs, Upon the sands — a goddess ! Since which night (They say) he hath grown up indifferent To all his kith and kind ; to laughter, love, And slave-girls singing. — 'Tis a pretty tale; Wouldst thou not love to make a song of it ? SAPPHO In truth, my Atthis, 'tis a moving tale, And I should love to make a song of it. Leave me ! ATTHIS Wilt thou compose it on the spot ? Nay, then I'll go for news of Larichus. {Atthis departs toward Mitylene. Sappho, left alone, descends from the shrine and leans against one of the temple pillars. From the cliff-path, Phaon enters. About him is flung a sea-net, under the hanging folds of which he holds in his hands, enmeshed, a white dove. THE TRAGEDY 97 Seeing him, Sappho withdraws into the temple through the tapestries, from between which she soon looks forth again. Slowly Phaon descends the broad steps and, sitting upon the last, extricates the dove from the net. As he rises with it in his hand and goes toward the altar of Poseidon, Sappho — unseen of him — comes from the temple and descends the steps behind him. Having reached the altar, Phaon is about to lift a knife which lies upon it, when Sappho stays his arm. Seeing her, he bends low in a subjected manner.J SAPPHO The dove : what wouldst thou with the wild thing ? PHAON [^Serenely.] SAPPHO It struggles. See, is not it beautiful ? PHAON I know not ; you have spoken. Kill it. SAPPHO But for whom Wilt thou then kill it, bondman ? PHAON For Poseidon ; The god is angry. 98 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Oh, not for Poseidon ! His sacrifice is death ; to Aphrodite Give it ! For her the sacrifice is life. Give it to me and I will dedicate it Alive to Aphrodite, for it is Her sacred bird. Look, I will give thee this — My bracelet — for the dove. PHAON \Taking, as at a command, Sappho's bracelet, releases the dove into her hands."] 'Tis yours. SAPPHO Her shrine Is yonder. I will loose it to her there. [^Starting for the shrine, Sappho treads upon the net, which Phaon before has let fall beside the steps. Pausing, she looks back at him, where he stands intent upon the gleaming bracelet in his hand. For a moment she con- tinues to look at Phaon thus, then, wrapping the dove in her filmy scarf, and placing it with her flowers on the steps, she lifts the net where it lies.] Thy net is torn. PHAON I climbed here from the beach. It caught on the clifif-rocks. SAPPHO I will mend it THE TRAGEDY 99 PHAON \_For the first time gazing at Aer.] You! [Fastening one end of the net — somewhat more than shoulder-high — to the tripod on the altar, Sappho secures the other end to the bronze caryatid, right. Thus (the net cutting the foreground obliquely from the middle') her face is separated from Phaon's by the interlaced strands, some of which — hanging torn — leave gaps in the fibre ?^ SAPPHO To mend is woman's task. PHAON \In wonder.'] Are you a woman ? SAPPHO Perhaps I am what women yearn to be : Man. PHAON Did you grow here in the temple .' SAPPHO I grew, or in what garden by the spray Or wave-lit cave my spirit's seed was sown, Surely 'tis thou who knowest : for methinks Thou also grewest there. Where 100 SAPPHO AhTD PHAON PHAON It may be so. SAPPHO Stood we not then as now ? and raised as now The net between us ? PHAON \Strangelyi\ Somewhat I remember. SAPPHO And even as now thine eyes shone through the meshes, And mine in thine : was it not always so ? PHAON \Indifferent, begins to tie strands of the net."] 'Tis broken. SAPPHO Ah, but shall be mended ! I Will tie the fibres. [In silence now for a little, they stand mending the net: Phaon before it, dumbly engrossed in his task ; Sappho, from behind, thrusting at times her white hand or arm through a gap to reach for a strand, and keeping her eyes burningly intent upon Phaon.'\ You are a boatman. PHAON Yes. THE TRAGEDY lOi SAPPHO Go you alone upon the water ? PHAON Yes. SAPPHO When you are all alone, are you afraid ? PHAON No. SAPPHO Put you ever far to sea ? PHAON Sometimes. SAPPHO And have you never rowed to the mainland ? PHAON Oft. SAPPHO By tempest ? PHAON Once. SAPPHO A Storm at twilight .' PHAON Once. 102 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Oh, is it true, then, what the sea-wives tell ? Was she a goddess ? PHAON Long ago ! 'twas long Ago. I was a boy, and that's all dark. SAPPHO And have you never seen her since she sprang Burning, upon the sands of Lydia 1 PHAON \_Momentarily ardent.'] Sometimes methought — I know not. SAPPHO You saw. PHAON How knowest thou.' Still you dreamed SAPPHO Tell me your dreams. [After a pause, Phaon — with a rapt smile — speaks. While he does so, Sappho — who has unwittingly tied his left wrist in one of the meshes where his hand rests — comes round to the other side of the net, and draws near to himl\ THE TRAGEDY 103 PHAON Oft ere the day, while all the slaves are sleeping, I and my boat put out on the black water ; Under us there and over us, the stars sing Songs of that silence. Soon then the sullen, brazen-horned oxen Rise in the east, and slowly with their wind-ploughs Break in the acres of the broad ^Egean Furrows of fire. So, many a time there, as I leaned to watch them Yoked in their glory, sudden 'gainst the sunrise Seemed that there stood a maiden — a bright shadow — SAPPHO Ah, you beheld her ! \From the colonnade, behind the farthest pillar, Alcmus and Anactoria enter and pause. Anactoria, nearly con- cealed by the pillar, points out to Alcceus the figures (on the opposite side of the net) of Phaon and Sappho, where, standing together, they are visible through the meshes. Alcceus^ face darkens. Sappho, not seeing them, speaks in a low, impassioned voice to Phaon.\ Look in my face. What were her features like — Hers, that bright shadow .' PHAON I am tangled ; you Have tied me in the mesh. SAPPHO I tied you ? 104 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON Here — My wrist. SAPPHO Did I do this ? PHAON You see — the noose. SAPPHO But did you feel me tie this .' PHAON No. SAPPHO \Murmurs^ 'Twas she ! Your hand is fast ; know you who made it fast ? 'Twas she: her fingers drew these knots. PHAON Untie them. \Alcceus, darkly, and Anactoria, radiant, withdraw unseen^ SAPPHO Nay, but who knows what wise, unconscious plot Her deft, strange fingers wove to trap thee } Thou Perchance hast trespassed here too near her shrine. And, having stranded thee in thine own net. She now is loath to toss thee back again In the sea, to thy dumb mermen. THE TRAGEDY lOS PHAON [ Working with his right hand^ They are fine, These knots. SAPPHO And so perchance, for chastisement, She hath contrived this noose to keep thee here In speech with her, till thou shalt call to mind The face, and name the name, of her you love. PHAON I mind it well — her face. Unloose me. SAPPHO Look! Is it a dream-face still .' — A shadow } PHAON No; 'Tis with me days and nights. It is familiar. SAPPHO And yours to her familiar as these nights And days — and yet as worshipful and strange. PHAON [Fascinated.'] Untie me. SAPPHO First, her name ! You may not slip Her noose, till you have guessed the name of her You love. I06 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON I know it well. SAPPHO \_Smiling.'\ Methinks you boast To seem more skilled than she in guessing yours. How call you her .'' PHAON Thalassa. SAPPHO \After a pause.'\ What is that .' PHAON Her name. SAPPHO What's she.? PHAON A slave. To you ? SAPPHO And what PHAON is she She's mine ; maketh my fire. SAPPHO Ah! THE TRAGEDY 107 PHAON Loose me. SAPPHO You do not dwell alone, then ? PHAON No. SAPPHO You are wed ? PHAON We are slaves ; slaves are not wed. SAPPHO No ; but you love her. PHAON Yes ; children have I got with her ; the bairn Is stricken of the fever. SAPPHO \Seizing the knife, cuts the meshes of the net."] Go ; you are free. \Phaon goes, silent-l Stay ; I have cut your wrist. PHAON A scratch. SAPPHO It bleeds. I08 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON The bairn is sick and I must sacriiice A young dove to our lord Poseidon. Soon Its mother will be here, to pray with me For the babe's life. SAPPHO Where is its mother now ? PHAON She is gone up to the city, to the house Of Sappho — the great lady. SAPPHO Oh, of Sappho ! What does she there ? PHAON She is gone to the slave-quarters With crawfish and sea-tortoise for a feast. Methinks the lady's brother shall be wed To-morrow. SAPPHO She is gone to the slave-quarters. — Let see thy wrist. — The house of Sappho is A slave's house. — Ah, the blood ! [ Tearing a shred from her garment, she. binds his ■wrist.'] I, too, have heard Of Sappho — the great slave. THE TRAGEDY IO9 PHAON Nay, 'tis a noble Maiden of Lesbos. At Apollo's feast Once, in the crowd, I saw her fillet pass Above the virgins' heads into the palace, And all the people shouted : lo Sappho I SAPPHO Believe it not ; the people were deceived. I know her well and she was born in chains — A weak and wretched fellow-slave of thine, Whose proudest joy were but to bind the hurt Which she hath given thee, even as I do now. Dost thou not hear me ? Whereon dost thou gaze .' PHAON \Looking off, left."] She is coming. SAPPHO Phaon ! Phaon ! PHAON \_I^or the first time turning upon her a wild unconscious look of love, grasps his bound wrist tightly.'\ Ah ! it pains. \Enter Thalassa, bearing a willow basket of strange design. She is dishevelled with seaweed and her long, fair hair, tinged with the green of salt ooze, has partly slipped its fillet of vari-coloured shells. She moves impassively to Phaon, and speaks in a low monotone^ no SAPPHO AND PHAON THALASSA The day's dead ; the moon's with child ; The tide's full. I saw far out A shark's fin. — Poseidon calls. Hast killed it ? PHAON [Pointing toward Sappho^ She bade me not. THALASSA \Turning to Sappho, who shrinks from her behind the net, bows herself low in obeisance.'\ What Sappho forbiddeth thee The sea-god hath bidden thee. — The babe shall have sacrifice. PHAON [Looking at Sappho, with a rush of thought.'] 'What, Sappho' — ! Didst hide it ? THALASSA The sea-dove — where PHAON 'Tis there. [As Thalassa goes toward the steps.'] 'Tis hers. She bought it ; this bracelet gave To save its life. THE TRAGEDY in THALASSA Give it me. \Taking the bracelet from Phaon, she holds it against the sunset, turning and turning it in the light.'\ PHAON {Standing at a distance.'] And are you Sappho ? Yet did speak my name, And bind my wrist, and call yourself a slave I SAPPHO And art thou Phaon ? Phaon for whom the stars Sang, and the brazen-horned oxen ploughed The acres of the sunrise ? Yet thou lovest — this ? PHAON You said : " I know her well, and she was born In chains — a fellow-slave ! " What did you mean ? Thalassa ! SAPPHO [Gazing, curious and incredulous.] THALASSA [Slipping the bracelet over her arm.] It shineth fine : See, Phaon ! SAPPHO Thalassa, where's Thy home ? 112 SAPPHO AND PHAON THALASSA On the beach we sleep Together. SAPPHO What dost thou for Thy lover ? THALASSA For him I keep Food, fire, and the babe and boy. SAPPHO And what wilt thou do to make His labour and name to grow Magnificent over the isles ? THALASSA [Returns Sappho's enkindled gaze with proud serenity J\ More bairns will I bear to him. SAPPHO And they — when the frost of death Hath gathered both thee and him — Shall they too but live — to live .' Be born still to bear again Procreative things that die ? PHAON [Having listened, vaguely fearful, moves now between the two women, and draws Thalassa, protectingly.'\ Cease, cease ! — Thalassa, come with me. Her eyes ! They burn us through the net. O come away ! THE TRAGEDY II3 THALASSA \_As she goes with Phaon, raises her arm with the bracelet, for Sappho to see.'\ This gold will I give the bairn To play with. — Keep thou the dove. PHAON [ With a gesture of yearning toward Sappho, departs in the falling twilight, his voice broken with pain.} Thalassa ! \Sappho, through the net, watching them together till they disappear, seizes then the net before her and, tearing it down, rends once the meshes with her hands.} SAPPHO Aphrodite ! Aphrodite ! Now, now thy net is torn, thy bird is free. ^Springing to the steps, she lifts the sea-dove and unwinds from about it the filmy scarf] O darling bird, which art my beating soul. That Phaon captured on these wild sea-cliffs. Mount up, mount up ! and nestle with thy wings Against the burning chlarays of heaven's queen There where her breast heaves highest. — Say to her : " Lady of love, almighty ! This is Sappho — Her spirit — whom thou madest of that fire Which sleeps in Phaon's eyes. Lo, I am his. And I will make him mine !" — This say to her, My heart's bird, and beseech her, if she hears 114 SAPPHO AND PHAON My prayer, and sanctioneth my passionate Resolve, that she will speed thee back to me In token she approves. — Yet should she not. Here do I choose, in spite of sea and heaven. The sanction of myself. \Releasing the sea-dove^ Good-by, sweet bird ! \_0n the steps, from her uplifted hand, she looses the bird, which takes wing into the sunset. Immediately Sappho springs up the steps and goes to the cliff ''s edge. There, standing against the subdued reflections of the ^gean, she follows the dove' s far flight with her eyes. J \Iiising, the Herculaneum curtain shuts off the scefte.'] Here follows the Pantomime of the First Interlude. Vide Appendix. ACT II ACT II Early night of the same day. The temple and sea gleam vaguely under the moon. Tapers are burning beneath the outstretched stone wings of the dove oti Aphro- dite's shrine, and the urn of Poseidon glows with fire — a signal light to mariners. Swinging lamps twinkle in the olive grove. On the edge of the grove, alone, stands Pittacus in reverie. From all sides out of the night, arise the soft string-sounds of sweet instru- ments and the music of far laughter. In the near distance (^from the left) the voice of Alcceus sings. ALC^US Wine, dear child, and truth And youth and these lips of thine ! Wine from the crocus' cup And truth from the poppy's heart Drink to me While I think of thee ! Think of me While I drink, drink Wine and youth And truth from these lips of thine. PITTACUS [Coming slowly down the steps.'] 'Tis silent now — that song; but still the silver shores Are drench'd with dews of it ; the olive groves — the air, 117 Il8 SAPPHO AND PHAON The ever-rhythmic waters — are in love. Of all I only and the white stars are not amorous. No more the wine of thee, dear child : the truth I drink ! And drinking that, I pass from madness into peace : Peace 7iow, yet should I look once more into her eyes, What then f \Enter from the grove a Figure, clad in the cloak of a Greek soldier, wearing a helmet with long horse-hair plume, a gold breastplate, and greaves of gold. '\ THE FIGURE \_Approaching Fittacus.] ' Under these olives,' lord of Mitylene ! PITTACUS \_Starting.'] Her brother, Larichus. {Turning toward the Figure, pauses bewildered^ Not Sappho — you ! SAPPHO ' Under these olives ' — was it not the place .' Well met, O Pittacus ! PITTACUS In such a garb — THE TRAGEDY II9 SAPPHO The wise Athene walked at Ilium Among the tetchy Greeks. The arbiter Of men needs govern as a man. — Where is Your tyrant's staff ? PITTACUS \_Drawing back.'\ Keep from me, lest again I lose the tranquil planet of my peace. Let me depart from you. SAPPHO / will depart When you have given me what I come to claim. PITTACUS AH but my quiet soul. SAPPHO That girdle of keys. PITTACUS {Feeling at his side.\ They are the city keys. 120 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Which one of them Unlocks the yoke-rings of the public slaves ? \Pittacus loosens one.] Give me that one. \_Reachi7ig, snatches it from him with a glad sigh."] Now keep your quiet soul, Philosopher : I will no more affray Your sleep with my alarms. [^She turns, and is leaving^ PITTACUS [Unmanned by her presence^ Yet do not go ! SAPPHO Peace ! You have put away with me the quest Of happiness. Yours is the living pall, The aloof and frozen place of listeners And lookers-on at life. But mine — ah ! mine The fount of life itself, the burning spring Pierian ! — I pity you. Farewell ! {Exit, left.] PITTACUS Farewell, thou burning one and beautiful ! I pity thee, for thou must live to quench With thine own tears thine elemental fire. \Enter Fhaon, right.] THE TRAGEDY 121 PHAON \_Groping toward the altar, moans low.'] Poseidon ! O Poseidon ! PITTACUS Still this slave That rises in my path to baffle me ! PHAON Ah — ah, Poseidon ! PITTACUS [^Drawing near."] Slave ! PHAON [^Pausing, speaks confidingly.] Are you the god ? PITTACUS [Hal/ Utterly.] The god ! I have deserved thy question, slave. Before, thy silence stung me — now thy words. PHAON Lord, lift it from me ; take it from my eyes ! Why have you cast its dimness over me ? PITTACUS What wouldst thou have me lift ? 122 SAPPHO AND PHAOJSr PHAON It closes down. Stretch forth your arm and draw it back to you. PITTACUS Look near : canst thou not see me .■' PHAON None I see ! The shore is gone ! It shutteth out the stars, Thicker and colder ! PITTACUS What? PHAON The fog ! The fog ! It shuts between us, and her far white face Wanes toward me like the lady in the moon, And now between the meshes I can see. Like shrines, her two eyes burning. PITTACUS Even this one ! Is there none then too low .' no piece of clay But passion there will make its chrysalis And kindle the worm wings ? Rest, thou poor churl ! [Exit slowly, rigAl.] THE TRAGEDY 1 23 PHAON [^Descending the steps supflicatingly^ Lord, be not angry ! Take it from before My face, and show me hers ! Sweep it away. And with your great hand show again the stars. \_Enter from the grove Thalassa. Slung at her back, is a swaddled babe. At her side is a little boy of some four or five years — his sturdy, sun-tanned body naked, save for wreathings of sea-weed and kelp, partly concealing his torse and intertangling the oozy locks of his long hair. The child carries a tortoise^ shell, with which — sitting upon the ground — he plays. Pausing at the top of the steps, Thalassa unbinds the infant from her back and takes it in her arms.] THALASSA lo, my bairn ! wakest thou ? Aye drowseth thy bonny head Low ! burneth thy little cheek That erst it was cold as ice. lo, my bairn ! droop thee not Away from thy mother's eyes ; Look up in them. [Descending the steps, Thalassa reaches the swaddled child toward Phaon, who stands by the altar, his face from hers, oblivious — staring ahead of him.] Phaon, take The bairn to thee : might it smile To lie in its father's arm And feel it strong. — Phaon ! 124 SAPPHO AND PHAON [Turning about vaguely toward her, Phaon takes the out- reached burden in his arms and holds it, rigid. Thalassa then, bending over, takes from her arm Sappho's bracelet and holds it dangling over the infant^ So! Now shall my bairnling look up and see what the Lady of Lesbos Hath given its father — a little gold dolphin instead of the sea-dove For bairnling to hold in its fingers and play with and make it grow strong. Look ! Its eyes are the green little stones that bum in the shallows at low-tide, And it bringeth a pearl in its mouth to please thee; aha ! glint thine eye now And look where the scales of it shine and shine in my bairnling's moon-beam, And it hath a slippery silvery tail like a sea-maiden's. \Bending over closer?^ Phaon ! It waketh not. Speak to it once ! It sleepeth aye as in fire. [Snatching the babe from Phaon' s arm and nestling it, pas- sionate, she drops the bracelet on the ground^ A curse on the bright dark Lady of Lesbos ! A curse on her shining Arm-ring ! Ah, naught it availeth the fever. Go ! Go and seek thou A victim and kill it. The wave-god is angry ! worse is the bairn. — Go ! THE TRAGEDY 125 But seek first the house of Sappho and give her the gold thing back. — Go ! \_Phaon moves a dazed step, then remains motionless. Turn- ing away, Thalassa, her face bent near to the babe in her arms, goes slowly up the steps. '\ lo, my bairn ! Come away. Now under the holy beam Thy mother will pray for thee That soon thou shalt wake and smile. lo, my bairn ! droop thee not Away from thy mother's heart. \She passes into the temple. The little boy is about to follow, but, seeing the bracelet at Phaoris feet, he runs back, and lifts it in his hand to his father.'^ THE CHILD Babbo ! PHAON Thy voice it is ! Bion, thy face ! Methought it had been hers till thy young eyes Shone through her misty hair : and now that mist Fades in the moon away. {SmiHng at the child, he sits on the altar stejis and takes him in his arms.] How creptst thou here, Sand-snail.' Aye stickest-to thy Babbo's side Like a spar of drift-wood. Ever at evening When roweth Babbo weary to the beach. Thou springest from the kelp, climbest his knees, 126 SAPPHO AND PHAON- Showest thy day's sport. Tighter, tighter, bairn. Thine arms about me ! Keep thy father fast. — Thou little piece of me, grow not so tall ! Taller than the iris-reeds that water-maids Make into pipes for Pan to play upon. Soon too shalt thou be ripe for him to play. Nay, whither now ? What new sport bringest here To show me ? — Tortoise ! A young turtle's shell : And was thine own catch } Flung him on the back ! Brave kill ! — What shineth in thy fingers there .' Show me what 'tis. \The Child lifts to him again the dolphin-bracelet of Sappho. Phaon, staring at it, starts to his feet with his former gesture of passionate groping.'\ Poseidon ! Ah, Poseidon ! Once more, once more, why blurrest thou the world ! Lift it away ! Thy mist is over all. Show me the path to her. [ With wondering eyes, the Child takes Phaon' s hand as if to lead.~\ 'Tis bitter cold. And is thy hand so small and warm .' Lead on — [Slowly the Child leads his father up the steps toward the colonnade.\ 'Tis ticklish walking on the wet weed-slime And naught but cloud to lean on — Lead the way. Her house is yonder where the breakers are. THE TRAGEDY 127 \Reentering with the infant from the temple, Thalassa steps forward between the first and second pillars. There, taking the bracelet from the boy's hand, she draws him with her away from his father and returns to the temple door.'\ THALASSA This gold will / give to her Back. Go thou to Sappho's gate And ask of what hour to-night She Cometh to the temple. We Shall wait thee here. Come to us ! \_She goes into the temple with the children. Phaon — his face lifted, his hand feeling before him — passes slowly off through the colonnade.'] PHAON Poseidon, — thy hand again ! [Exit.l \_77ie voice of Alcmus calls outside in the olive-grove."] ALCiEUS Boy ! — lacchus ! — Boy ! \_Enter Alcmus, accompanied by an Ethiopian slave boy, and followed by Sappho, disguised as before, now carrying a spear. Alcceus, wreathed with grape leaves, is adorned fantastically as a Bacchanalian. The slave, likewise draped with vines, bears upon his head and shoulders a bulging wine-sack tnade of a skin. This (sinking upon one knee) he supports thus as upon a salver at Alcceus'' side, and lifts to him, from beneath it, a shallow, black-figured drinking cup.] 128 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC^US Here, here, thou sack-stool ! Down, And hold the pigskin for the bridegroom. Wait ! \Addressing the cloaked figure of Sappho.^ Hail, Larichus ! hail, bridegroom home again ! To Dionysus I thy welcome pour. — The cup ! — \_Filling it from the sack.'\ I charge thee, bird from Lydia, When Atthis keeps thy house in Lesbos, plant No other tree before the vine ! And so Sleep long and make your nest in grape-leaves. Drink ! And so for song : {Singing-I Wine, dear child, and truth And youth and these lips — SAPPHO \_Turning from the cupj] No wine for me. ALC^US No bride for Larichus ! For what is love but grape-juice ? brides, but grapes ? And lovers — wine-skins ! Look you on this sack My caryatid here is holding — This Whilome was pig and grunted in the bog For water-nuts and mire : a sow's first-born With bristles, Hyacinthus of the herd ! {jPouring from the sack and drinking.'\ THE TRAGEDY 1 29 Behold him now — a vessel for us gods, Swelling with Cyprian nectar. O translation ! Yet such a pig was Pittacus, who now Swelleth with love of Sappho. — \_Drinking^ Nay, but we — Before we fell in love, were ive not swine Compared to this we are ? \_Patting the wine-sack^ I say, for one, The Arcadians crunched acorns and no slander To them ; and as for me — \Singing^^ Ajax was a king, not I ! 1 fell by the kiss of the Cyprus-born — And though Hebrus be the most plentiful of rivers yet 'tis said : from nothing, \Inverting his empty cup."] nothing cometh. More, boy ! SAPPHO Where's Atthis ? ALC^US Where's thy sister .' Where's the song-dove ? Where's Sappho ? SAPPHO [^Starting."] You've not answered me. K 130 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALCiEUS All's one ! I say, there lives a kind of four-wing'd Muse, Quadruple-eyed and double-filleted. Called indiscriminately Sappho — Atthis ; Find one, find both ; for they be always arm And neck together. Nay, but Larichus, Patience and wait! As I am drunk, henceforth I am thy brother : Sappho loveth me. Since when .' SAPPHO ALCEUS By Heracles, I know not : here To-day upon this ground, she swooned all pale Because another loved me ; and she bade Me meet her here to-night. — Good lad, thy hand And blessing ! [Sappho draws slightly away.'] What! SAPPHO I wish you joy of her. ALC^US And not thy hand upon it ? SAPPHO To be honest, I cannot deem you happy. THE TRAGEDY 131 ALCyEUS With thy sister ! SAPPHO These sisters are not all they seem to be. ALC^US But Sappho ! SAPPHO I perhaps know her too well. ALCyEUS And doubt she loves me } SAPPHO Nay, far otherwise. I doubt if ever she saw form of man, Or maiden either, whom — being beautiful — She hath not loved. ALCiEUS But not with passion — SAPPHO All That breathes to her is passion ; love itself All-passionate. 132 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALCiEUS Thou goadest me with thorns. — This evening — Nay, why should I tell thee this ? And yet I will : — At sunset, here I saw Thy sister speaking with a public slave. Ah! SAPPHO [ Withdrawing^ ALC^US If I thought— but I will tell thee more. Here hung a net suspended, and they stood Together, speaking low — I watched them yonder. The slave was mending. Somehow he had got One of his hands entangled in the mesh, And she — I could not plainly watch her through The net — methought she peered into his face. SAPPHO Ah! ALC^US So I left them. No more ? SAPPHO Did you stay to see ALCiEUS There was one with me. THE TRAGEDY 133 SAPPHO \Quickly.'\ Who? ALCyEUS No matter. But him — that slave ! Sappho to speak with him On the temple steps ! — The thought hath maddened me. Why art thou silent } Dost thou deem it nothing That she should stoop to him ? SAPPHO She could not stoop To him. ALGOUS By heaven I I'd have his vermin heart Upon a spit and roast it — were it so ; But I am drunk to think it. — Boy, I pray you When next you meet your sister, say no word Of what I saw ; but tactfully you might Whisper some praises of me. Wait a little, I'll run and find her. \To the wine-slave^ Come! [ Calling dackJ] And Atthis too 1 I'll tell her thou art waiting here to clasp Her neck with Lydian pearls. Ho bride and groom ! 134 SAPPHO AND PHAON \Nabbing the slave-boy by the ear, he departs with him, singing.'] Fetch me a Teian Goblet of gold ! Life is a cubit, Love is a span. lExitl SAPPHO \_After a pause.] Soon shall the moon on the waters Sleep, and the Pleiades ; midnight Come and the darkness be empty, I in the silence — be waiting. Phaon ! Phaon ! — where must I Seek thee.' Send me thine omen! \_Remotely from the grove sounds the voice of Alcaus, singing.] ALCiEUS Love me, drink with me, bloom with me, die, love ! Garlands for me are thine. Mad when I am, share thou of my madness, Wise, be thou wise with me. [From between the temple-tapestries appears Bion, the child. Running to the grove, he lifts from the ground a broken olive-bough, with lithe green shoots. These he strips of their leaves and twines, snake-like, round the main stem, which he flourishes blithely as a staff. Discovering then the tortoise-shell which lies near the steps, he runs to pick it up.] THE TRAGEDY 1 35 SAPPHO [ Watching himJ\ At play — a luck-child ! Here's my happy omen. \Taking the shell, Bion is about to return to the temple, when, seeing the cloaked Figure, he pauses and stares?^ SAPPHO Well, water-elf ? Upon what dolphin's back Or oily bladder rodest thou here to land ? Why dost thou pierce me with those sea-blue eyes, As though they saw me in as guileless state As thy small body is? Dost thou perchance See through this manly corselet and suspect This strutting Menelaus, that he wears Within, a heart more coward-womanly Than Paris ? Stare not so, but answer me. Ah, now I know thou art a water-boy. For wave-sprites all are dumb to mortals, speak Only to mermaids and to weedy Triton, Their father. Come, what hast thou there .' \The boy holds out the tortoise-shell and as, taking it, Sappho sits upon the altar steps (at the right), the child comes and stands near.] A shell ! A turtle's house ! — and once upon a time — Sprite, wilt thou hear a story ? ^The child nestles close.] Long ago There lived another turtle, and he died And left his shell-house empty by the waves, 136 SAPPHO AND PHAON And there a goddess bOre a little boy Named Hermes, and when he was four hours old He was as tall as thou art, \PlayfuUy twitching his branch of olive.] Nay, methinks By thy caduceus, boy, thou shouldst be he, And I that goddess. — Play, then ! So he walked Beside the waves and found the empty shell, (Like this) and took a golden thorn — [^Taking from under the helmet a hair-pin of gold.] like this, And turned and turned the thorn — like this — and bored Nine holes in either side, and drew through them Nine strings — [Lifting the lyre which Alcceus left behind on the ground^ like these, and so he made the shell ° [Striking the lyre.] like this, and sitting in the spray He sang with it a song — a song like this : — [Singing.] Hollow shell, horny shell. Wake from slumber. Long — too long — hast thou lain Deaf and silent. Where the pulse blooms in gold — Moon- and sun-rise — Thou didst creep slow and dumb, Seeing nothing. THE TRAGEDY 1 37 Yet above thee gleamed and swung Star and swallow, And around thee, lost in song. Lovers mingled. Horny shell, hear'st thou not What I murmur ? Wake ! my breath is on thee warm. Wake ! I touch thee. \Throwing away the lyre, Sappho starts up, and clasping the child close, speaks passionately.] Ah, little Hermes, pray for me ! Thou only Whose dumb child-cry the immortals hearken, go And kneel to thy grandsire, the great Poseidon, And tell him thou didst meet with a bright being, Nor man nor woman, but a spirit both. That bade thee intercede for him — for her, That all the wild desire of this wild heart May be to-night fulfilled. Pray him, through you. To yield my love to me. Run, Hermes ! — run ! \_T7ie Child, with eyes of wonder, springs up the steps toward the temple. On the way, seeing the lyre lying where it has been thrown, he drops the tortoise-shell and, taking with him the lyre, runs into the temple. This Sappho, having turned away introspectively, does not perceive. From the olives now the voice of Atthis calls. — Enter- ing, she rushes forward with outstretched arms.] ATTHIS Larichus — Welcome home, my Larichus ! [Shrinking back.] Ah me, what are you > 138 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO [ With a smile.] Am I, then, so changed ? ATTHIS Sappho ! but thou art cruel. Where's thy brother ? Alcaeus said he waited for me here. SAPPHO Myself am all thy lovers that are here. Why do you sob .-• ATTHIS \_T?irowing herself on the marble bench.'] He never will return. SAPPHO \Leaning over her.] I loved thee, Atthis, long and long ago, Even when thou wert a slight and graceless child, And should I let this soldier-brother come And steal thee now away .■' ATTHIS He does not come. Why have you done this to me ? Why are you Clad in his armour ? Why have you deceived Alcaeus, and now me ? [From the colonnade Anactoria enters, in moody revery."] THE TRAGEDY SAPPHO \Indicates her to Atthis.'\ Come, ask of her. \ Going toward the colonnade. \ Toria ! • [Atthis rises slowly, and looks after her.'\ ANACTORIA {Starting from her thoughts, looks in amazement.'] Is it j/ouf 139 My promise well i SAPPHO Have I not kept ANACTORIA But — SAPPHO He hath been here. ANACTORIA He! SAPPHO Alcaeus : his love-lesson hath begun. Did I not tell thee I would teach him well .' Leaving me now, he's gone to look for me, And looking for his love, he is to find You, I40 SAPPHO AND PHAON- ANACTORIA Me? SAPPHO There in the temple I have left My violets. Go you and put them on And come again. \Pn Anactoria's face slowly there dawns a light of passion- ate triumph.\ ANACTORIA \Raising her clenched hands.'\ Oh ! this is wonderful ! \She turns and goes into the temple. Atthis comes wonder- ingly to Sappho.] ATTHIS And is it for her sake you wear this garb .' SAPPHO For her sake .' No ; not all ; nor to rebuke Alcaeus, all. But there are motives, girl, To guess which thou wouldst tremble, for thou art What thou wert born — a soft bride to be wooed, And 'Hymenaeon !' was thy cradle song ; But I — Listen yonder ! \_Distantly the deep voices of men are heard, lifting a rude and intermittent chant, which soon recurs — wild and low — more near.] THE TRAGEDY I41 THE VOICES Akoue, Poseidon ! SAPPHO Upward from the shore The men-slaves and the beach-folk now are bringing Their offerings here to the sea-god, for Fair weather on the morrow. — There perhaps Among them,, there among the dark sea-faces, Ruddy with wine and passion, unaware My lover walks — a dumb and dreamy slave Yearning for liberation. Therefore, Atthis, I have put on this garb, that as a man I still may search those faces of the night Till I shall peer within that bondman's eyes And set his spirit free. \As Atthis, with a start of half comprehension, is about to speak."] Hush ; do not guess, But go now with thy servant to my house And wait for Larichus. — Fear not for me. [Atthis kisses Sappho's hand and goes in awe.] [Groups of sea-slaves now have begun to enter in the moon- light — rough, forbidding presences of rude physical power and superstition ; some are wrapped in cloaks, others are almost naked, their sun-darkened flesh branded with symbols of their owners ; all are bare- headed and without weapons. Bringing in their hands their sea-offerings, — shells, coral, kelp, and other simple tokens, — they place these on the top step before the temple, and moved vaguely — now some, now others — to utter 142 SAPPHO AND PHAON their discontinuous chant,gather upon the steps and before the temple. Thus, for a minute or more, there transpires only pantomime. Upon the entrance of the slaves, Sappho at first turns instinctively away from them, and draws her cloak more closely about her. Yearningly, however, she turns back and moves among them — silent, search- ing. Now she joins a group of three that are drinking from a stone wine-jar, scans them, and turns elsewhere to one who is laying his gift of coral before the altar; from him too she turns and, touching a stooping form, peers wistfully an instant at the eyes upraised there to hers, then moves toward other forms obscure in the shadows."] THE SEA-SLAVES lou, Poseidon ! \At this cry of the slaves, the tapestry at the temple door parts, and there enters — clad in dark purple and green — the Priest of Poseidon, attended by two Acolytes (who gather up the offerings). The Priest raises his long trident staff, at which the slaves fall upon their faces, prostrating themselves with their low cry.] THE SEA-SLAVES Chaire, Poseidon I {Sappho alone remains standing, at once wistful and impe- rious. The Priest motions toward her with his staff.] SAPPHO Biddest thou me bow down, O Silent One ? Not with these abject children of the earth, Nor to thy god. — Not to thy pitiless God of the generations, pain and death, THE TRAGEDY 143 Whom I defy ! This day did I release Out of his clutch a dove of sacrifice Despite of him ; and of these nameless slaves Bow'd to his yoke, one — one will I set free And lift as an immortal at my side This night, in scorn of thee and thy Poseidon. Put back thy trident : that is powerless To sway me, for unseen the deathless birds Of Aphrodite ward me with their wings Inviolably free, and passionate To dare. Thy god is not my god ; thy law Is not my law. \Tumingfrom the temple and the priest — who remains im- passive, majestically mute — Sappho, pursuing her search among the dark forms, passes quickly from the scene {right). \As she goes, one of the prostrate slaves on the temple steps, who has partly raised himself during her speech, rises now alone and gazes after her. It is Phaon. Standing erect among the bowed forms of his fellow- slaves, he moves a few steps toward the place of Sappho's departure, and pauses. The trident of the Priest touches his shoulder, but he does not feel it. The other slaves rise menacingly and, muttering, are about to force him prostrate before the Priest, when the latter intervenes and motions them away. They depart slowly, uttering their chant ; the Priest and Acolytes reenter the temple. All this Phaon neither heeds nor sees. Left alone, he stands gazing still where Sappho has departed — in his face the struggle of an awaking consciousness. \_ Outside from the colonnade, some one whistles. The sound is repeated. Phaon turns absently and looks back."] 144 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC^US [ Outside.^ Here, water-dog ! Stand where thou art. \_£ntering.'\ Where art thou skulking, cur ? PHAON \_Bending.'\ What would you, lord ? ALC^US What makest at this hour Here by the holy temple ? PHAON Seeking, lord. ALC^US What, charity ? A meal of maggots ? Some Goat's entrails by the altar ? What wast seeking? PHAON [^Slowly.'] A dream. {Bursting into shrill laughter."^ Ha — ha, Apollo ! my Apollo! Behold thy Trojan Kalchas lives again, Born of a Lesbian sea-bitch I Lo, a dog THE TRAGEDY 145 Hath sniffed thine altar and become a seer And prophet ! Come, my dream-seeker, canst read The flight of birds ? Look there — those moonlit doves — What mean their dreamy circlings ? Prophesy ! PHAON \_Looking over the dim sea, where for a moment a flutter of doves is visible, shrinks back superstitiously.'\ Death. ALC^US \_His shrill derision checked by a sudden awe.'] Here's enough of this. I, too, am seeking. The lady Sappho spoke with thee to-day — Answer me, churl : what said she .' PHAON [^Slowly straightening to his erect stature.] She will tell. ALCiEUS So shalt thou, scavenger ; And if thou'd 'scape the knot-whip, Speak quickly. PHAON t have spoken. 146 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALCiEUS \_About to burst into passion, pauses and squints maliciously. '\ Oho, an avaricious Lick-bones ! {Taking from a pouch, hands to Phaon a coin.} An itching mongrel ! Here, hound ; here's for thy mange. Speak ; we'll not tell the lady. [Phaon, looking from the coin in his hand to Alcceus' face, silently tosses the coin over the cliff, Alcwus starts passionately."] Slave, thou shalt have the rack For this ; I'll have thy master Flay thee. PHAON I have no master. I am a public slave ; The city owns me. ALC^US [Seizing the spear which Sappho has left behind, strikes with it at Phaon.] Let The city burn thy carcass. PHAON [ Wresting from him the spear.] Lord, you have drunk too deep. THE TRAGEDY ALCiEUS Boy — lacchus ! Ho, boy ! here ! \_Enter the Ethiopian slave-boy.^ My guards ! run to my garden And fetch them thither. — Run ! \_Exit the s/ave."] By heaven, it grows now plainer Why Sappho hath not met me : She hath prepared a feast Of tidbits for a sea-dog. And keeps her chamber. 147 Is not at home. PHAON She ALC^US So t^ou Hast sought her there ! PHAON Heft Lately her house. \_Reenter Sappho, now without her helmet — her dark locks falling about her breastplate in the moonlight. She stands unobserved, intense, watching the two.] 148 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC^US 'Twas so, then ! Her brother said so. Faugh ! Faugh ! how the mad night reeks it ! A slave ! — O Larichus, Thou spakest well: These sisters Are not all that they seem ! But she — the Muse! — to turn Circe, and set her meshes To catch a water-rat — A public, prowling slave ! PHAON No more ! ALC^US But this is Lesbos, Where all are lovers ! This Will sing most musically Set to the lyre : how Sappho, Enamour'd of the sea-god, Invoked the slime, to yield As substitute — PHAON \_Approaching near."] No more ! ALCvEUS A wharf-rat for her lover. THE TRAGEDY 149 PHAON [Bursting his culminated self-control, strikes with clenched hand AIccrus to the ground, where he lies his length, unconscious, at the foot of the steps. Ignoring him there, Phaon lifts his face with an exultant, dreamy smile, speaking low.'\ Lord, the stars ! Thy stars again ! how glorious they burn ! At last ! SAPPHO [ Coming forward.'] PHAON [Gazing in her face.] Still they are burning there. SAPPHO At last Thy hand is lifted and thy blow is fallen. Look! at thy feet he bows, alive and prone From his proud pedestal : this lord of lords. Ha, Aphrodite ! in this man of men How I have triumphed ! PHAON Are you not the same That stood amidst us, with thy helmet plume, And scorned the silent god ? 150 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Wert thou so near And yet I found thee not ? PHAON Your spirit found me ; Its voice awoke me 'mongst the herded slaves And bade me rise towards you, for it said — ' One — one will I set free.' SAPPHO That slave is freed ! There lies his bondage stricken in the dust By his own hand. PHAON \Bewildered^ My hand "i SAPPHO Was it not thine That felled him yonder ? Was it not thy soul That to his mockery cried out " No more ! " And smote him mute 1 PHAON Thou sayest it was I : Speak on! — Even so thou spakest by the net. THE TRAGEDY 151 SAPPHO Canst thou then name me ? PHAON Sappho. SAPPHO Hush ; he breathes Less hard ; come hither. \They move away to the right.'] All the waning time Of all the stars have I kept watch for thee. PHAON And I have groped in darkness — toward thine eyes- SAPPHO Who shall constrain Apollo 'neath the sea When he uplifts his glad brow from the fens Aspiring to inevitable noon ? Who shall constrain Phaon a slave ? PHAON Speak still ! SAPPHO Out of thy dim fens hath thy godhead dawned Insufferably fair. O Phaon, that Which thou hast struck already from thy soul I loose now from thy body. [With the key of Pittacus, Sappho unfastens the bronze yoke- ring from the neck of Phaon, and takes it from him in her hand^ Know you this ? 152 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON My name-ring 'tis. SAPPHO [Heads from the characters in the metal^ ' Phaon of Lesbos — slave.' PHAON {Pressing his hand to his throatI\ How light ! — how light and strange ! Methought it was Even myself, a part of me. SAPPHO Hear how it falls now — a dead thing Back to the dust. \She drops the bronze ring, which falls with a muffled sound to the earth. Watching this, AlccBUS, who from his swoon has awakened and listened with fierce self-restraint, now, unobserved, crawls on the ground to within reach of the ring, secures it, and returns silently, while Sappho continues speaking to Phaon."] Never shalt thou, cramped again in thy sea-sleep. Wake at its twinge in thy sinews ; never again in the noon-glare Feel it scorch in thy flesh familiar shame, nor at bitter Sundown, numbly, in winter, lay on thy drowsy blood its Ache long accustomed. THE TRAGEDY I S3 PHAON The clutch hath loosened ; the fingers of bronze are Loosened. SAPPHO And with them the yoke of contumely, scorn and the callous Scar of the drift-wood. PHAON What breath filleth my body with fire.' What is the voice of this cloud that speaketh in flame to me .'* SAPPHO Hear it! Phaon of Lesbos is dead. PHAON Ah! SAPPHO Phaon of Hellas is risen ! Phaon of all the ^olian isles — of the ages that will be Unto the Autumn of time : Phaon, the freedman of Sappho. 154 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC^US [Faintly from where he lies.'] Larichus ! [There is a moment of silence, without motion. Slowly then Sappho points to her spear on the ground, speaking to Phaon.] SAPPHO To my service, bondslave : bear My spear for me. PHAON [Lifting the spear, precedes Sappho, as she moves to go.] Forever ! [£xit right.] ALCJEVS [Half raising himself^ Larichus ! Who speaks to me ? SAPPHO [Pausing.] ALC^US [Rising.] A liar, for he names You Larichus : a liar and a dupe Of yours. SAPPHO Alcaeus, you have listened — heard ? THE TRAGEDY 155 ALCEUS Laughter from high Olympus have I heard : ' Sappho the Rat-catcher hath speared her quarry ! ' Cries blithe Terpsichore. — You shall not go ; You shall not, till you hear me. \Sappho, who has started away, pauses again in serene con- tempt, and looks full at Alcceus.] SAPPHO Well ? ALC^US Forgive The wine-god for my words. But that is past And I am bitter earnest. — Men are born, Not made ; and what is bred is bred in soul And brain more deep than sinews. SAPPHO Well ? ALCMVS A slave Shall always be a slave. No yoke of bronze Cast off can liberate him. SAPPHO Yet a slave Could bid Alcseus bow and eat the earth Even at his feet. ALC^US Beware ! I love you. 156 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO I Love Phaon. ALC^US He — SAPPHO ]_Bitingly.'\ ' Can I constrain a god ? Tether him ? Clip his wings ? Say come or £-0 1 Love is a voyager ' — or hath this Love Changed, since you scoffed at Anactoria ? ALC^US You have upraised him, not himself; and he Shall fall more basely from your height. SAPPHO Oh, I Am sure of him as of this Uberal air I breathe. [^Reaching upward her arms.] This will not ever fail, nor Phaon. ALC^US \Fiercdy, staying her as she goes again.'] Keep from him yet. One knowledge I will not spare you now. Look down : There in the caverns Of sea-weed and the slime-ooze, The tide creatures and reptiles Seek in the dark their mates And spawn their generations. THE TRAGEDY 1 57 SAPPHO ^Drawing daciJ] The Spring is universal. ALC/EUS Even as the Autumn. [Pointing below."] He Is one of those. His mate And brood are there. — Ha, Sappho ! You did not know. SAPPHO \_Dreamily.'\ I knew. ALC^US You knew that Phaon — SAPPHO Was he not a slave, And now — no more } ALCyEUS Impossible ! Art thou Sappho of Mitylene .■' SAPPHO Do you dream I am not she .■' or have you never known Sappho .■• 158 SAPPHO AND PHAON ALC.EUS You are gone blind with passion. SAPPHO Blind! Have you beheld through the obscuring world The Beautiful ? There comes a day, Alcaeus, When one of us, that for a million years Have gendered in the sun, looks upward in His face, and in the features there discerns Our own divinity. I am that one ; And so the stumbling and unconscious ways Of nature are no longer mine : her currents, Self-foiled, obstructed, clogged, I sway to sure And passionate direction. Thenceforth I Am pilgrim and not pathway : destiny I am, no more the clay of destiny. ALC^US But Phaon — SAPPHO Have you felt the maker's joy Who out of clay sculptures Hyperion, Or out of silence shapes heart-moving song ? — That is my joy of Phaon. ALC^US You are fooled ; YourseK are Nature's bondmaid. THE TRAGEDY 1 59 SAPPHO Little minds Muddy with resolution. — Go your ways, Alcseus, for I go now to my lover : Yea, knowing all thy knowledge do I go, And on his liberated soul I stake My hope — my life. \_Exit right ^ ALC^US [Springing after her, then pausing.'\ Sappho ! — Ah, Muse of Vengeance ! A medicine — a medicine for this ! \_Liftingin his hand the bronze yoke, he reads. "^ ' Phaon of Lesbos — slave.' \As he stands thus desperately intent, Anactoria enters from the temple, wearing the violet-wreath of Sappho. She walks direct to him and looks silently in his face, with fierce pride and yearning. At her presence, he starts and smiles faintly. "^ Her violets ! ANACTORIA She sent them to you — so. ALC^US \His look turning back from her to the yoke of bronze.] Put them away From you. l6o SAPPHO AND PHAON ANACTORIA To one who hath herself been put Away, they should be fitting. ALC^US [ Watching some one approach^ Pittacus ! {Enter in meditation Pittacus. Alcceus — his face lighting with sudden exultation — turns to his companion with a gesture of passionate deference.^ Incomparable Anactoria, Beloved ! all those damned subtle chains Of Sappho thou hast struck away. Once more My vows and I are thine. — Hail, Pittacus ! Your boon and blessing ! A betrothal boon On us, two foolish lovers reconciled. ANACTORIA \Utterly bewildered^ Alcaeus ! PITTACUS You and Anactoria ! ALC^US Will you deny true love its whims, and heap Embarrassment on her, who trembles there ? Enough she chooses me, your rival once And now your craving friend. 'Twas you who said ' Forgiveness better is than punishment.' Therefore a boon, to prove it ! THE TRAGEDY i6l PITTACUS Would please you ? What have I ALCyEUS A mere nothing, yet my heart Is set upon it. You, my lord, are Tyrant Of Mitylene, and as such 'tis you Who own the public slaves. — A lover's whim, My lord ! — You will remember how to-day You struck one of these slaves — a fellow passing With drift-wood. PITTACUS Yes. ALCiEUS The blame was mine. I can't Forget his face. By heaven, I will requite That fellow. I would have him feel to-night As glad as I am. Sir — a foolish boon I Give him to me to be my body-slave. ANACTORIA No, nol ALC^US \Reachinghis arm toward her^ Dear love ! H 1 62 SAPPHO AND PHAON PITTACUS How deep is wine — and truth ! This spinning world, 'tis but a street-boy's top, And each must whip his own. {Passing en.] The slave is yours. ANACTORIA [Starting after^ You do not understand. ALC^US \Staying her.] 'Tis you, sweet girl, Who have not guessed my purpose. ANACTORIA \_Trembling^ Tell me. PITTACUS \_From the colonnade.] Friends, If you shall chance to meet with Sappho, say That Pittacus, her friend, hath sailed for Sparta. lExit] ANACTORIA. \_Feverishly.] What would you do with Phaon ? , THE TRAGEDY 163 ALCiEUS \Kissing her hand, which she withdraws.'] Can't you guess ? Love, I have purchased him to wait on you In public, when the girl-disciples meet And Sappho leads the singing. ANACTORIA \_Gazing at Mm, fascinated.'] Horrible! ALCyEUS And at the festivals, amid the mirth And fluttered laughter of the maidens, Phaon Shall bear the wine-sack in, and pass the cakes To Sappho, where she sits beside you. — Come ; Yonder's my black knave lacchus. He is running Up from my garden. We'll go meet him. ANACTORIA \_Following impotent.] Why? ALCiEUS \_Seizing her arm and raising the yoke-ring in his other hand.] Why do the robins fly to meet the spring ? [_£xeunt, /e/t.] \_Enter, right, Sappho and Phaon. Each has a hand upon the horizontal spear between them, and — until Sappho releases — they speak across it, lifting or lowering it in their mutual persuasion^ l64 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO 'Tis mine. PHAON 'Tis mine. SAPPHO You must not bear it more In servitude. PHAON \_PleadinglyI\ In service now ! SAPPHO Even now ? Yielded so soon, and all my victory Reversed ? — Nay, be it mine in the pursuit, For I have been your huntress. PHAON Him you sought You have transformed. O Spirit, Woman, Whatso you are, the war-cry of your love Shouts in my blood and tingles in my brain For action and for freedom and for life. Let me go armed to-night — your conqueror. Into my hands — the spear I THE TRAGEDY 165 SAPPHO A little while Be conquered yet ; a little breathing-space Fear me — lest I shall fear. PHAON For what ? You are SAPPHO Awakened to me from your torpid lair So newly masterful. My sudden wound Of liberty hath quickened into power Till now, imperious, you turn at bay And wrestle with me. PHAON \Smiling^ Yield, then. SAPPHO ^ . ., O not yet ! Still let me be Diana — thou, my stag. And through the April uplands of the world Flee on, on, burning backward with thine eyes, And I forever kindled. PHAON Not that free And lordly animal — [^Setting his foot upon B ion's tortoise-shell beside him.'] Look there, the thing Which you awakened into ecstasy Of being — me, this soul you gaze upon. l66, SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO [Looking from the shell to Phaorisface^ My playmate Hermes — grown to manhood : even So might he glance and smile. PHAON Hermes — what's he ? SAPPHO A little child I love. — My Phaon, share This weapon with me. Make not of me yet A woman only. Comrades let us be, Or children bargaining their captaincy — Agamemnon and his brother, hand in hand Against the Trojans. PHAON Childhood never trafficked Rapture like yours. You would not what you ask. [Li/ting high the spear, to which Sappho's hand still clings^ Relinquish ! SAPPHO Not — playfellow ? PHAON No. SAPPHO [Releases her grasp, half fearfully. \ My peer, then ! THE TRAGEDY 167 PHAON No, but your lord and lover ! Nevermore Shall you be sovereign of your maiden will Or single in your fate. Not here with priest And song, but with a spear, you have betrothed me. \Raising the weapon above him, and smiling up at «V.] O thou my spear, thou singest in my hand. Thou art my power and manhood. Face to face Thou pittest me in combat with the gods, And raising thee, my mind is raisM up Confronting heaven, till from those clouds of fire This slavish world grows dim, and all that sways it — The tyrant's hate, the galley-master's goad. The sordid trader's dreams of avarice — Dwindle to impotence. Thine is the war Which shall not end with time — war with those gods That made men's misery. {To Sappho.'] Beloved, know What you have quickened, and if you would hear The chant of life my lips can never sing, Hark, hark now to the hymning of this steel ! \From the cliff he hurls the spear into the night,] There flies the first : ten thousand will I fling Because of you. SAPPHO \_Going to his arms.] My lover I l68 SAPPHO AND PHAON \Then, as Phaon embraces her, she draws back wistful, and peers in the moonlight after the fallen spear.] If its dart, Falling, should strike a dove ! PHAON Turn not away. Where are your thoughts deep wandered in the night. Or what, love, do they hear ? [ Where they stand silent, from below the faint roar of the surf and a far love-song are dreamily distinguishable. \ SAPPHO \Turning to him.'] ' The chant of life ! ' Listen ! Your lifted spear hath been a signal For that world-music. Even as the master Lifteth his staff and all the temple-choir Raise their clear chanting, So hath it waked those wild-sweet ocean murmurs Yonder — Thou hearest with me ! — where the crickets Melt with that human lover and the night-bird Over Mitylene. PHAON These are but thou ; and thoughts of thee are music. THE TRAGEDY 169 SAPPHO Nay, but look also ! On the glassy sea-floor, White as the moonbeam, how it rises ghostly There ! PHAON 'Tis a fog-bank. SAPPHO Yes, but the cloud is carved : against the night sky. Trembling, 1^ ''fts the pearl horns of a lyre Curved, and a hand that holds a mighty plectron Plays to Orion ! PHAON Nay, 'tis a ship I see : her prow is curving Up from the cloudy billows, and her captain. Standing upon it, where the bending oarsmen Churn the bright star-foam, Points to the world beneath them — all its kingdoms Kindling with men, and to his one companion Speaks in the silence : ' All this will I conquer, Sappho ! ' SAPPHO My master ! \Enter, from the colonnade, Anactoria.'] ANACTORIA [ Wildly.} He is coming : go ! Go in the temple ! I/O SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Who Is coming, 'Toria ? ANACrORIA Alcaeus ! Oh, Mad was I for his love, and blind with dread Of you. I did not dream his horrible Vengeance. Go in the temple. SAPPHO ANACrORIA Why? In there Is sanctuary. ^To Phaon.^ He can take thee not Take me ? PHAON ANACTORIA Thou art his body-slave, his flesh, His chattels. Pittacus hath granted him Thee and thy freedom. He is coming now To seize thee. PHAON [As Sappho, with a cry, goes to him.] I will greet him. THE TRAGEDY 171 ANACTORIA Nay, he brings His guards — two score of spearmen. SAPPHO {To PhaonA Come with me ; My house will shelter us. ANACTORIA You cannot leave ; The ways are held, his men surround this place. SAPPHO {Tensely A^ Is there no path unknown to them ? PHAON This one. SAPPHO The cliff-path, ah ! Quick, Phaon : we will go Here. PHAON You would dare this with me ? SAPPHO Am I not Yours .' PHAON You will go ? 172 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Even to the underworld ! PHAON Against the Tyrant's will ? SAPPHO Against the gods'. PHAON [Moves with swift decision.\ Come, then ; my boat is there. ANACrORIA [Imploringly, to Sappho?^ Stay ! — there is death. Your brother is returned. Stay in the temple Till I can bring him here. SAPPHO Not Larichus. At dawn he brings his bride. They must not know This thing. [Imperiously ^^ Go : keep it from them — for my sake. ANACrORIA [Goes\ For thy sake would that I had killed myself ! [Exit, left.'] THE TRAGEDY 173 SAPPHO [7b Phaon.'\ Look there : what gleams among the olives ? PHAON Spears. They are coming. SAPPHO [/« dread, protectingly .\ Phaon ! PHAON See, the path falls sheer Into the wave — my arms your only staff. [Swinging from the cliff, Phaon takes footing upon the jutted path below, his face and shoulder only visible as he reaches upward to Sappho's support.'] Still do you dare } SAPPHO We must dare all to be Ourselves. — Your arms, love ! — Now to the world's end. The islands of the Cyclops in the seas ! [Sappho and Phaon disappear below the cliff. As they do so there is heard the low rattle of greaves and, emerging on the edges of the scene, the points of spear-heads glisten. Simultaneously, from the temple, comes forth Thalassa — her babe at her breast — followed by Bion, who carries in his hands the lyre."] 174 SAPPHO AND PHAON THALASSA \_Searching with her tyes.J He tarrieth long away — Too long for the fever ; yet At last will he come to me. \JStooping in the shadow of the pillar, she sits on the lowest step leading to the shrine. There, while the little boy, in his garb of sea-weed, wanders in the moonlight, thrum- ming the strings of the lyre with low, monotonous cadence, Thalassa clutches her babe close, and sway- ing her body with a strange rhythm, suckles the fever- stricken child. From there, as she sings, her voice floats mournfully in the night.^ Hesper, Hesper, Eleleu ! Lord of evening, thou that bringest All that lovely Morning scattered — Eleleu ! Eleleu ! Lord, the sheep, the goat thou bringest, The child to its mother. Eleleu ! \_Slowly the Herculaneum curtain shuts off the scene.'\ Here follows the Pantomime of the Second Interlude. Vide Appendix. ACT III ACT III Earliest daybreak is beginning to struggle faintly with the light of the low moon, muffled now by masses of slowly indrif ting fog from the sea, in the background. Against this, stand out vaguely the outlines of the temple, uncer- tain shadows of which are cast upon the fog by the glow of the still blazing urn. Beside this urn, white-haired, clad in his dark-flowing purple and green, stands the Priest of Poseidon, replenishing it with fagots. All is silent, and the last of the swinging lamps in the olive grove flickers out. As the Priest, leaning wearily on his trident-staff, moves slowly from the urn, there enters to him, from the temple, Phaon. About him is thrown a rough fisher' s cloak. He greets the Priest in a low voice and points back to the temple. PHAON Father, she rests ; the holy vestals fetch her there Garments and warmth. — Ah, blessed was thy beacon ! Calm All night it gazed upon us like a parent's eye Guiding us home to refuge, when the lamps of heaven Themselves were swallowed up with black, insuffer- able Fog. Father, speak ! What is this portent ? And this pang N 177 178 SAPPHO AND PHAON Of cold and clutching cloud — what meaneth it, that never Since I was child, can I remember like to this ? Yet first methought I dreamed it : all last evening Darkly it hung with mist my mind; but now that fog. Which rolled and gathered in imagination, look ! This air and actual world are palled and numb with it. Oh, if this thing be more than earthly, tell ! \The Priest turns away.] Forgive, I had forgot thy vow of silence to the god. Yet answer me in sign : is it Poseidon's anger ? [Tke Priest nods assent.] Yet wherefore is he angry ? Hath some mortal broken His law .'' \_T7ie Priest, nodding once more assent, moves past Phaon.] Stay, father ! — Who .> Who hath offended him ? [ The Priest gazes sadly into Phaon's face, then, giving no further sign, passes iuto the temple. Phaon starts, with a low cry of fear.] Ah me, Poseidon, lord ! / have offended thee. \_Going to the altar, Phaon prostrates himself to the earth and remains there, bowed. After a brief pause enter from the temple Sappho, clad in the white garment of a vestal. Seeing Phaon, she comes down furtively and stands beside him. For a moment Phaon does not see her. Then as with a shiver she touches his shoulder, he leaps up beside her, ardent^ THE TRAGEDY 179 Once more ! \Pausing, he draws back in awe.'] How art thou changed ! Scarce would I dream 'Tis thou. SAPPHO The virgins they have clothed me. PHAON Why Have you come forth into the cold .' SAPPHO How long Until the day .' PHAON Already it grows dawn ; Were it clear, the cedars would be burning black Along the yellow hill-sky. You are chilled : Still you are trembling from the sea-damp. — Here ! [^Taking his cloak from his shoulders, he throws it about her.] SAPPHO It may be that ; it may be so. PHAON Come in And warm thee. l8o SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Phaon, no ; 'tis not the night Hath deadened so my heart ; hardly it beats. 'Tis not the chill, the faintness and the fog. PHAON What is it, Sappho .' SAPPHO \Tuming to him, impetuous^ Ah ! why are we here ? Wherefore have you returned and brought me back .' Why are we not still there — out there alone Together in thy little groping boat, Lost, rudderless, amid the unimagin'd Glooms of the gray .(Egean ! Over us — No wider than the space betwixt our faces — The fog had built a tent, and shut away Sky, shore, and men and temples, yet our eyes Had lighted there an inward universe More vast, wherein our hearts stood still, and breathed The awful passion of the breathing tide. Ah, why did you turn back ? PHAON \Hesitant^ You would have perished ; Twice in my arms you fainted with the cold. SAPPHO Not with the cold — with ecstasy of fire ! THE TRAGEDY i8l PHAON \Uneasily, veiling his deeper reason. \ This holy beacon gleamed our only sign Of haven ; 'twas the god who summoned us. — Food, warmth, and life were here for you. And fear ! SAPPHO Portent and fear. PHAON What fear } SAPPHO Unspeakable \To her self :\ Whilst we returned, methought I heard again The croon of that eternal cradle-song, And — all of mist — the awful Mother rose, Outreaching on the air her vacant arms. [ Wildly, to Fhaon.'] O better to have died together there Than here — to separate. PHAON That will not be. SAPPHO Phaon, tkey will find you here. Come to the boat Once more. [^Taking hold of him as to go."] Come back with me. 1 82 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON {^Putting her hand away.] You know not yet The mightiest cause of my return. SAPPHO The fog, You said. But see — the dawn ! The fog will lift. PHAON The fog will never lift — if we go yet SAPPHO What do you mean ? PHAON \_His face taking on a look of superstitious fear, his body — slowly — a slave-like bearing, he half whispers myste- riously.] Sappho, I know the fog ; Since boyhood I have known. This is not fog. This is the wrath and darkness of the god : / have offended him. SAPPHO Look not like that ! PHAON The dove I should have killed for him — it lives ; You took it from me, but it was Poseidon's. Therefore I have returned to appease his anger. THE TRAGEDY 183 SAPPHO Phaon, drift not away ! In pity of Our love, drift not away. PHAON This will not lift Till I have sacrificed. \_Going:\ Wait but a little And I will find a victim. SAPPHO [ With imperious appeal^ Do you say This — you, that for our liberty defied With me fate and the gods } PHAON That blasphemy Hath raised this cloud. The sea-god demands death. And I must sacrifice. SAPPHO Stoop not to this ! Our wills are their own Providence, and shape The mandates of the immortals to their ends. PHAON Wait : I will not be long. l84 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO \_Following^ It must not be. Phaon, this thought itself is bondage. Think : To you I yielded as my guiding star, And now if you shall fall, our heaven and we Shall have one darkness. Be once more thyself — Master of life. {From off the scene, left, is heard the low thrumming of a stringed instrument. Phaon stops to listen.\ PHAON What sound is that ? SAPPHO lAfterapause.-\ ^^^^^^^ His lyre it is ; the tone of it I know. — Come back, or he will seize you. Phaon ! PHAON [Raising his clasped hands, exultant."] Lord! Thy victim ! Thou hast sent him to my hands. SAPPHO You know him not : his guards are with him there To do his vengeance. He will violate The temple in the dark, and murder you. [Phaon hastens to the altar.] What would you do ? THE TRAGEDY 185 PHAON \Seizing the knife of ritual.'] He comes for sacrifice ; The god, not I, hath summoned him. [ Calling into the mist.'] Alcaeus ! Phaon, be silent. SAPPHO [Imploring.] PHAON [Mounting the steps toward the colonnade^ Mockest thou me, Alcasus .' Makest thou me thy slave to tinkling strings And thrum of music ? SAPPHO [Clinging to him.] Hush. PHAON [Putting her away I] Come, take me ; here Ami. SAPPHO [Numbly.'] The star is fallen. l86 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON \To Sappho. 1 Fear no more ; I have but drawn him on. Now will I be Silent — and sure. [ Crouching behind the second pillar, he holds the long knife drawn and, waiting, murmurs to Sappho, who stands pale and spellbound.'^ Soon shall the fog be lifted. \The low thrumming sounds draw near and nearer, along the colonnade, until suddenly Phaon, listening, springs forward and strikes blindly behind the pillar in the obscurity.'\ Thy blood upon me ! \_He leaps backJ] A CHILD'S VOICE \_Cries in the dimness.'^ Babbo! \_From behind the pillar, Bion, the child, with arms out- stretched to Phaon, staggers forward and falls, dropping from his hands a lyre. Phaon, staring for an instant, turns away his face toward Sappho, and points to the earth behind him.] PHAON What is there .' THE TRAGEDY 187 SAPPHO \Kneeling, raises the lyre and looks upon the ioy."] The lyre I played. Ah, little Hermes, thou ! Lift up thy head, my luck-boy. 'Tis thy friend, dear. The goddess. PHAON [^Turning superstitiously.] Ha! SAPPHO The blood ! His heart's still. \_Rising fiercely toward Phaon.\ Have murdered him — my elf, my intercessor ! Blindly you struck this blow in your own darkness And killed him — innocent. Look ! I accuse you ! His blood is on you. PHAON [ Who has looked, speechless, upon the body, sinks upon his knees beside it.'] Bion, my son ! SAPPHO iShrinkingback.-] His father! \^I7iere is an utter silence. Sappho, gazing at the two, mur- murs to herself in awe.] And if the dove had died, the child had lived. [ JVith impulsive tenderness, she moves to speak to Phaon, but over his bowed form, her utterance fails. At last she half whispers to Aim.'] Phaon, I did not know. — Phaon ! 1 88 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON \_Oblivious, touches the child's tumbled hair^ Shalt grow No taller now among the iris-reeds. SAPPHO Mine is this deed, not yours. My sorrow shall Be ransom for you. PHAON \Rises slowly. ^ What hast thou for me .' Thou which hast taken him ! — O moi ! Thalassa ! \He rushes into the temple. "^ SAPPHO [ Wildly, following him."] No, no — not her ! Not now to her ! [From off the scene, left, is heard a low crooning sound — the voice of Thalassa.'\ THALASSA Eleu! \Sappho, at the temple door, pauses, clutching the tapestry?^ Where art thou, my Bion ? Dim The way is ; I hear thy shell No more ; strike it louder. THE TRAGEDY 1 89 \Thalassa enters, bearing in her arms the daie.J Didst Thou meet with thy Babbo ? We Have followed thy music far, Yet nowhere we found him in The night. Speak : where art thou ? — Ah, Thou'st wearied, and laid thee down Asleep. SAPPHO [Stepping forward, with compassion, intercepts Tkalassa's gaze from the body.\ Come no nearer. Go In peace. THALASSA The bright lady ! [Starting toward Sappho, she holds out to her the swaddled babe.'\ Feel, 'Tis cold now : will drink no more Its mother's milk. [ Taking from her bosom the dolphin-bracelet^ Look, 'tis here — Thine arm- ring, the shining curse Thou gavest to Phaon ; take The gold thing ! Ah, take it back That so may my little one Be warm now, and drink again. IQO 'Tis cold ? SAPPHO AND PHAOAT SAPPHO THALASSA \_Fiercely.'\ Nay, shalt touch it not ! 'Tis mine, mine ! Take thou the gold And give me its smile again. SAPPHO \_Slowfy taking the bracelet from TTialassa, peers at the infants face and draws awayj} Ah me! THALASSA \_Looking from Sappho to the child with an eager hope.^ Thou hast ta'en it back At last ! Still why keepest thou The warmth of it ? Mine it is — Not thine — the babe. Give it me In my arm alive ! SAPPHO [^Anguished, turns upon Thalassa.'] What am I To thee ? Or what art thou Or this to me ? — Not I, Not I it was who chilled its little heart. I say it was not I. THE TRAGEDY 191 \Thalassa, heedless and unhearing, watches only the child's face, while from her own the light of hope goes slowly out."] Phaon I took from thee, Phaon I freed, because his soul is mine And mine his own ; and these — These little lifeless ones — I would have given Joy of their days ; but now This double bolt from heaven, this aimless death Hath snatched them, as the lightning slayeth the sheep. — O say not it was I ! THALASSA It stirs not ; it nestles not. Perchance yet the sacrifice Shall make it to breathe again. [Moving toward the temfkJ] Its father will know. — SAPPHO [Placing herself in herfath^ Not there ! Go to thy kin on the beaches, Bearing thy sorrow. Go quickly Lest it shall be too late. THALASSA [Smiling wanly, murmurs to the infant^ Nestling ! 192 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Hear me ! I plead to you. Passionate Slave imperturbable ! Sibyl — Sphynx of maternity ! Hear me Now ; I am humble. THALASSA Eleu! Nine moons was I blithe of it, Awaiting the cry of it ; Ah, glad was the glimpse of it And soft were the fingers ; warm It clung to me. SAPPHO {Terribly. '\ Leave me : I fear you. You, of all beings, alone I Fear. On the waters I feared you. Even as he rowed us to freedom. Out of the drip of his oars, you Sang to him. Out of the fog-bank, Fog-born, the fate of you rose, and Drew us to shore again. But though, Sibyl, I feared you, yet now I Challenge. Not so shall that vision Blast, which I witnessed with Phaon Here — No, not so shall the coil of Circumstance strangle us ! /, not You, am his destiny. — Prove us ! {Reenter Phaon from the temple^ THE TRAGEDY 193 THALASSA \_Going to Aim.] Look, Babbo : 'tis gone away, Hath left my arms. PHAON [^Looking on the infant.'] Both! \^Gazing away to the sea.] The night Is lifting now. THALASSA Fhaon, hast Thou sacrificed ? PHAON {^Pointing where Bion /ies.] There : 'tis done. THALASSA [^Turning swiftly to the body, stoops near.] Poseidon ! Poseidon ! Ah ! [Crouching over the body, she moans low and lays the infant beside «V.] lo ! io ! Sleep with him. \She bows prostrate over the children.] o 194 SAPPHO AND PHAON PHAON [ With sulkn fierceness, slave-like, approaches Sappho.} Goddess, be merciful — thou that hast maddened me ! Thou that in longing Infinite yearnest for life, be appeased now. For thee — for thee this Sacrifice ! Look, we have made our offering. There is our life-blood : Warm is it still, and the opened hearts have yielded their happy Spirits to thee. Be appeased ! SAPPHO Phaon, do you not know me? PHAON Long have I known thee — too long. First in my boyhood I saw thee. Thou from the awful immortals earnest in storm, and thy beauty Blinded the day ; and the slave-folk warned me, but I would not heed their Counsel. I loved thee. Ah, why — why now again in thy vengeance Hast thou returned here to curse me ? Thou, not Poseidon, hast spread these Meshes of cloud to entangle me in this murder. SAPPHO [ Cries aloud."} No, Phaon ! THE TRAGEDY 195 PHAON Kneel, Thalassa, bow down! Bow down to the Lady of Heaven ; Pray thou with me. {To Sappho :\ O remove thy scourge from us, most wretched slaves. THALASSA {Bowing down with Fhaon before Sappho.] Bright Lady, give us our bairns again ! SAPPHO Kneel not ! No Lady of Heaven — Sappho am I, and a mortal wretched as ye are: a woman Born from the pang of a mother like thee, Thalassa — a woman Passionate, seeking the love of the man that loveth her. Phaon, Phaon ! Remember you not this place in the sun- set, — the brightening Moon on the ^gean, the falling cliff-path below us, the crying Sea-birds — my hand on thy shoulder ? I am Sappho — that Sappho 1 PHAON {Dreamily.] Glorious there was your face as you leaned to me. 196 SAPPHO AND PHAON SAPPHO Hast thou forgotten How, with our hands on my spear between us, we wrestled for mastery Here? — How you pleaded and, lordly, bade me relinquish, and conquered ? PHAON Over your golden breastplate glooming, your hair like the tempest Darkened. SAPPHO \_Moving gradually nearer the cliff, while Phaon follows — hesitant, fascinated^ You lifted it high — the spear — and gazed on it, raising Upward your glowing mind to it, crying aloud 'gainst the heaven War on the tyrant god&i:hat make men's slavery. PHAON Starlight Shone in your smile. SAPPHO How you towered, god- like yourself, — yea, as even Now ! — and the spear in your hand grew divine — a fiery symbol. Yours was that fire. THE TRAGEDY 197 PHAON SAPPHO Then you hurled it into the mystery — hurled it Singing — and turned to me. \_Exuliing, as Phaon — ardent — reaches toward Aer.] So! PHAON Beloved ! SAPPHO Thou art restored to me ! {^Springing to the cliff-path.'\ Come, then : Our vision has triumphed, THALASSA [ Calling low.'] Babbo ! PHAON \_Pausing wildly, with instant revolution lapses to his slave's posture.] Ha ! thou art tempting Me to thy power again. [ Going to ITialassa, who still is bowed, stricken, over the bodies.] Thalassa, come to me ! 198 SAPPHO AND PHAON THALASSA \_Lifts her craving face to his^ Give them Back to me, Babbo. PHAON \_Starting,'\ Babbo ! — Hark, they are calling it : " Babbo ! " " Father ! " From yonder they call to me, lifting their little arms hither Out of the dark of Hades. — Cease now, my Bion ! I hear thee. Yea, and will bring ye both home again. \Raistng TTialassa to him.'\ Mother of them, thou my slave-mate, Come with me ! I — thou and I — shall draw them again to us — call their Flitting ghosts back into flesh and blood — warm again in our arms. Come, Come to the beach with me : far, far in the salty- weed caverns. There will I give thee them back, and make repara- tion ; there shalt thou Bear to me children — alive, bright-eyed avengers of me, their Father, — this murder. Thalassa, lift up yon little body. And I will bear in my son unto the temple. THE TRAGEDY 199 \Lifting the dead boy in his arms, he goes with the slave- woman, who carries the infant child. At the door of the temple, where their eyes meet across the dead forms of their children, Phaon gives to her a yearning look of ten- derness, and they enter. the temple. From her place by the cliff whence she has watched without moving, Sappho calls with anguished appeal^ SAPPHO Thalassa ! \The colours of sunrise begin now to flood the scene. Away on the left are heard the voices of men and maidens singing.'] THE VOICES Gath'rers, what have ye forgot, HymencBon ! Blushing ripe on the end of the bough ? HymencBon ! Ripe now, but ye may not reach — For the bride is won, and the groom is strong : Kala, O Chariessa f SAPPHO [Murmurs."] The epithalamium ! — and so the end ! [Slowly, with aspect of succumbed despair, Sappho moves to- ward the steps of Aphrodite's shrine. As she does so, the Priest of Poseidon comes from the temple to the first pillar and, raising there his trident toward the sunrise, stands awaiting the approaching singers, whose flutes and lyres sound nearer. 200 SAPPHO AND PHAON Art thou then come once more, O Silent One ? \Sinking at his/eeti\ God of the generations, pain, and death, I bow to thee. — Not for love's sake is love's Fierce happiness, but for the after-race. Yet, thou eternal Watcher of the tides. Knowing their passions, tell me ! Why must we Rapturous beings of the spray and storm That, chanting, beat our hearts against thy shores Of aspiration — ebb .'' ebb and return Into the songless deep.' Are we no more Than foam upon thy garment .'' — flying spume Caught on thy trident's horn, to flash the sun An instant — and expire ? Are we no more ? Reveal to me ! Break once thine infinite Vow of secretiveness, and whisper it Soft. I will keep thy secret. [Rising.'] Thou wilt not ! Thou wilt divulge it — never. Fare you well ! [She rushes up the steps to the jutting shrine.] Another wave has broken at your feet And, moaning, wanes into oblivion. But not its radiance ! That flashes back Into the Morning, and shall flame again Over a myriad waves. That flame am I, Nor thou, Poseidon, shalt extinguish me. My spirit. is thy changeling, and returns To her, who glows beyond the stars of birth — To her, who is herself time's passion-star. THE TRAGEDY 201 \Tumingto the edge of the rock, Sappho calls upward into the breaking mists, through which the full glory of morning ruddies her white robe with its splendour.'] Beautiful Sister, goddess of desire, Come to me ! Clasp me in your wings of sunrise Burning, for see ! I go forth to you burning Still. — Aphrodite ! \_She leaps into the fog and disappears. As she vanishes, there enters, through the colonnade, singing, the bridal procession of youths and girl- disciples, accom- panying Atthis, who holds, smiling, the hand of a youth in gold armour. As these reach and pass the silent form of the Priest, the fog — increasing from the sea — rolls over the scene.] VOICES OF THE SINGERS Like the stars about the moon Hymencson ! When her orbed smile she shows, Hymenceon ! Lovers, yield to her your light ; She is single in the night. Kala, O Chariessa ! FINIS OTHER POETICAL DRAMAS BY Mr. PERCY MACKAYE Jeanne d*Arc "A series of scenes animated at times by a. sure, direct, and simple poetry, again by the militant fire, and finally by the bitter pathos of the most moving, perhaps the most beautiful, and cer- tainly the most inexplicable story in profane history." — Phila- delphia Ledger. "A singularly fresh, buoyant treatment of an old subject, Mr. Mackaye's ' Jeanne d'Arc ' contains less pageantry and more spirit- uality than any of the plays about the Maid since Schiller." — Record-Herald, Chicago. Fenris the Wolf "A drama that shows triple greatness. There is the supreme beauty of poetry, the perfect sense of dramatic proportion, and nobility of purpose. It is a work to dream over, to make one see glorious pictures, — a work to uplift to soul heights through its marvellously wrought sense appeal." — Examiner. The Canterbury Pilgrims " This is a comedy in four acts, — a comedy in the higher and better meaning of the term. It is an original conception worked out with a rare degree of freshness and buoyancy, and it may hon- estly be called a play of unusual interest and unusual literary merit. . . . The drama might well be called a character portrait of Chaucer, for it shows him forth with keen discernment, a capti- vating figure among men, an intensely human, vigorous, kindly man. ... It is a moving, vigorous play in action. Things go rapidly and happily, and, while there are many passages of real poetry, the book is essentially a drama." — St. Paul Dispatch. Each, doth, gilt top, decorated cover, $1.2 j net. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHEES, 64-66 FIPTH AVENTIE, NEW TOKK RECENT VOLUMES OF POETRY By STEPHEN PHILLIPS (dramatic verse) ^gj>Q Cloth, i2mo, $1.2$ tut The Sin of David <^'^'"^' ^^"">' ^'-^s net Ulysses Cloth, izmo, $1.2$ net "Mr. Stephen Phillips is one of not more than three or four living poets of whom the student of English literature finds himself com- pelled, in the interest of his study, to take account." — Mont- gomery Schuyler, in The New York Times. By WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Lyrical and Dramatic Poems in two volumes The first volume contains his lyrics up to the present time ; the second includes all of his five dramas in verse ; The Countess Cathleen ; The Land of Heart's Desire ; The King's Threshold; On Baile's Strand ; and The Shadowy Waters. " Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry." — New York Herald. By SARA KING WILEY (dramatic and lyric) The Coming of Philibert in press Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic cioth, $1.50 net Alcestis: and Other Poems cuth, ?$ cents net "Fundamentally lyrical in free play of imagination, frankness of creation, passionate devotion, and exaltation of sacrifice." — The Outlook. MR. ALFRED AUSTIN'S latest book of verse The Door of Humility Mr. W. H. Mallock makes the publication of this poem, so similar in attempt to Tennyson's In Meftwriam, the basis of an exceptionally interesting comparison of the two poets laureate, in which he declares that Mr. Austin " equals, and probably excels, Lord Tennyson in his general conception of what great poetry is." Cloth, i2mo, $i.jo net Mr. Alfred Noyes's Poems Mr. Richard Le Gallienne in the North American Review pointed out recently "their spontaneous power and fresh- ness, their imaginative vision, their lyrical magic." He adds : " Mr. Noyes is surprisingly various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a writer, in which so many different things are done, and all done so well. . . . But that for which one is most grateful to Mr. Noyes in his strong and brilliant treatment of all his rich material, is the gift by which, in my opinion, he stands alone among the younger poets of the day, his lyrical gift." Cloth, i2mo, $i.2S net MR. CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON'S The Worker: and Other Poems "Characterized by unusual tenderness and spiritual uplift," says one critic, " a quiet, unstriving beauty that will repay reading." Cloth, i6mo, $1.25 net WILLIAM J. NEIDIG'S The First Wardens. Poems Cloth, rdmoy $i.oo net Mr. ARTHUR UPSON'S The City: A Poem-Drama And Other Poems Cloth, l6mo, $l.oo net By a. E. The Divine Vision And Other Poems Cloth, izmo, $1.25 net Mrs. ELLA HIGGINSON'S When the Birds Go North Again Cloth, i6mo, $1.25 net ALL OF THE ABOVE ARE PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY PUBLISHEES, 64-66 FIFTH AVENUE, HEW TOEK The POETIC DRAMAS of PERCY ACKAYE With some Account of His Life and Work ^^f^^^f THE MACMILLAN COIVIPANY A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Mr. Percy MacKaye is of interesting descent on both ndes. His paternal greatgrandfather came to this country from the Scottish Highlands about 1800. His grandfather. Colonel James Morrison MacKaye, a staunch adherent of anti-slavery doctrines, was an intimate friend of Clay, Webster, Garrison, Lincoln, and other leaden of the time. During the Civil War, he was one of three com- missioners appointed by Lincoln to personally investigate the condibon of the negro in the South ; and his official report thereon was an important influence among those which determined the signing of the Emancipation Proc- Jamation. His father, James Steele MacKaye was a man of various talent and versatility. Beginning as a painter, a pupil o( Hunt, Inness and Gerome, but losing his studio and paintings in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, he becama an ardent disciple of Francois Delsarte, and introdnced. 'his principles to America. Thus indirectly he was led to make a profession of the drama : as author of many successful plays, the best remembered probably being " Hazel Kiike" and " Paul Kauvar ;" as actor in his own plays and in " Hamlet " and other plays of Shake- speare; and as theater founder and manager at the old Lyceam and at the Madison Square in New York. His activity carried him also into various other pursmta, in which he was inventor, artist, and man of affairs. On his mother's side, Percy MacKaye is of New England Puritan descent, his ancestors having come to Massachusetts in 1632. His maternal grandmother was President of one of the earliest women's colleges in New England. His mother, nee Mary Medbery, was bom in Newburyport, Mass. Her intellectual activity, which must have exerted a strong influence on her eon, has recently been shown by a charming dramatization of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," lately published. Percy MacKaye was bom in New York City, Maich 16th, 1875. The winters of his boyhood were spent in or about New York and — as he grew old enough — in the frequent companionship o( his father in the theater, espe- cially during the production o( " Paul Kauvar " at the old Standard Theater. He was also initiated in the knowl- edge o( "behind the scenes" by his older brother, William Payson MacKaye, an actor and an artist of great promise, who died near ^e beginning of his career. His summers — and a few winters — were passed in rural New England, chiefly at Shirley, Mass., which he has always considered as home. In 1 892-93, he made his first essay in the genre of poetic drama, by writing a series of choral songs for hit father's vast musical drama " Col- umbus," to have been performed in his Spectatorium, planned, and nearly completed, for the World's Fair. Anton Seidl, who had been engaged to conduct the music, said of this enterprise : " In the art of poetic spec- tacle, this project as far exceeds Baireuth, as Baireuth ex- ceeded the drama of Wagner's predecessors." Owing to an unforseen panic in Wall Street, however, the Specta- torium was never completed, end soon after — as a result of incessant overwork — Steele MacKaye died (Feb. 25th, 1894) at the age of 52. At Harvard College his son Percy studied the usual four years, taking his A. B. in 1 897. During his Junior year, he wrote a poetical play, acted by Harvard and Wellesley students, entitled " Sappho," dealing with the Greek poetess as heroine, but bearing no other resem- blance to his latest work. At graduation he was one of the speakers, his commencement part being entitled; "The Need of Imagination in the Drama of Today." A year after graduation, he was married to miss Marion Homer Morse, of Cambridge, Mass., and went abroad, spending two years in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and England. In Italy he and his wife lived in a villa on the Aldobrandini estate at Frascati, near Rome, where he wrote a poetical play entitled, " A Garland to Sylvia." Going to Leipzig, he matriculated at the Uni- versity, where he studied Germanics, and wrote a play on the subject of the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. A later result of this study was his play " Fenris the Wolf," published ia 1905. Retutning in 1 900 to New York, he taught there in a private school for boys for four years. During this period, Mr. E. H. Sothem became interested in his dramatic work, and commissioned him to write ** The Canterbury Pilgrims," as yet unacted, but published in 1903. In 1904, he joined the colony of artists and writers at Cor- nish, N.H., where he has his permanent home. There he has devoted himself entirely to literary and dramatic work. His third published poetic drama was ** Jearmed'Arc," 1906 : and his fourth " Sappho and Phaon," 1907. He has also written a prose version of part of Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales, * and a prose drama, ** The Scare- crow," based on Nathaniers Hawthorne's sketch "Feather- top." Besides these he has written a considerable amount or verse and prose, including a lecture on "American Drama: Some Aspects and Potentialities," delivered in Chicago, 1906; "Ninety-Seven," a poem read at the decennial reunion of his Harvard Class (published in the New York Post June 29, 1907), and the Prologue to the Outdoor Masque given at the remarkable celebration, in 1905, of the twentieth atmiversary o( the founding o( the Cornish colony by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The first of his plays to be acted on the public stage was "Jeanne d'Arc," produced by Mr. E. H. Sothera and Miss Julia Marlowe at the Lyric Theater, Phila- delphia, October 15, 1906 (with a musical sui7e by Prof. F. S. Converse of Harvard), and since then performed by them at Chicago, New York, Boston, London, and else- where. Its success from every point of view has been great, and bodes well for the future not only of Mr. Mac- Kaye as a dramatist, but of the whole American drama as well. " Sappho and Phaon " was produced, by Mr. Harrison GreyFiske, October 21st, 1907, at the Lyric Theater, New York, with Madame Bertha Kahch m the title role. SAPPHO AND PHAON A Tragedy. Set forth with a Prologue, Induc- tion, Prelude, Interludes and Epilogue Decorated cloth, gilt top, tU) pages, $1.2Snet by matt $1.35 This Tragedy, laid in 600 B.C., and dealing with the fate o( the Lesbian poetess, is framed in an imagina- tive, aiclieological, setting of Prologue, Induction, Inter- ludes and Epilogue. As first staged in New York, how- ever, by Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, with Madame Bertha Kalich in the role of Sappho, the Tragedy itself has, with the author's full approval, been alone prepared for production. Though departing from certain ancient traditions, yet — as a discriminating critic has written of it — " The drama is Greek in tone ; the tragedy is treated reverently ; the characters are pawns in the hands of the resistless gods ; struggle as they will, they are enmeshed by fate . . . and quite the most notable triumph of the play is not the lyric passion of Sappho, vtith its echoes of the authentic frag- ments of her Lesbian poesy, not her splendid paaan to the mastery and the mystery of the sea ; not the depiction of the splendid poetess and aristocrat, all suddenly turned woman, pleading for her love ; not the dainty foppish- ness of Alceeus, the Greek poet, in love with Sappho ; nor the graver attitude of Pittacus, tyrant of Milylene, likewise her lover — but the wonderful changes in the character ot this base, callous slave, this Phaon, whose physical manhood first marked him out from among his fellows." ..." Enter now the symbolic and the human elements. Phaon, as slave, cannot wed. But by Thalassa, slave-woman, his mate, he has two duldren, one c( whom is ill. The father intends to sacrifice a dove to Poseidon, to appease the god's anger, so the babe may recover. Sappho persuades him to give her the dove, for the service of Aphrodite. The human ele- ment enters with Thalassa, symbolical of the spirit of maternity, of devotion to helpless bairns, singer of the crooning cradle-songs of the world. Henceforth Phaon is torn between the passionate dream of this resplendent poetess, who seems to him as one of the gods, and the saner love of the mother of his children, of her who shared uncomplainingly with him his dull, dank sea-cave." In this elemental conflict, Poseidon, the angered " god of the generations, pain and death,*' defeats Aphrodite; and Phaon, stricken once more a slave, bows over the body of his little dead son, while Sappho, uttering an ultimate defiance of destiny, leaps from the temple-cliff into the sea. JEANNE D'ARC Decorated cloth, gilt top, 16 pages, illustrated, ISmo, $1.25 net; by mail $1.35 First produced in Philadelphia, October 15, 1906, by E. H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, and since, by the same actors, in New York, Boston, London and other large cities. Everywhere it has been praised. The Nation pronounced it " a drama which is likely to find » place in the permanent literature of the American theatre.'' Mr. John Corbin wrote of it in The Sun (New York): " What Lamartine did for Jeanne d'Arc in biography, and Boutet de Monvel in illustration, Mr, MacKaye has done in the drama. Here for the first time on the stage we have the maid of voices and visions in her habit as she lived, nobly patriotic in her homely peasant girlhood, sweetly intimate, unaffectedly simple in her triumph and in her martyrdom. . . . Mr. MacKaye has then, quito obviously, taken an honorable place in the front rank of modem poetic dramatists." "The great thing that this young American has done," declares Collier's Weekly, " is to make the shep- herd girl of Domremy mean something more beautifully real than, on the stage at least, she has been before — make us see the girl that D'Alen^on saw, and at the same time hear the voices and feel the mystery and power that Jeanne heard and felt." " It is not too much to say that his treatment of the Maid of Orleans is at once the most convincing and sym- pathetic yet accorded her by poet or dramatist," is the confident assertion of the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Every line is strong and purposeful, and though not lacking in the higher tones all are couched in commoa language," is the opinion of the Dramatic Mirror. "The author seems to have discovered a mean between prose drama and so-called dramatic poems." FENRIS THE WOLF A Tragedy Cloth, tilt top, 160 pages, liSmo, $1.25 net by mail $1.32 "Iq Mr. Percy MacKaye's tragedy, 'Fenris the Wolf,' " says The Nation, " we have a play which u an uncommonly bold piece of imagination. In setting and atmosphere the play is highly poetic. The action passes before lune-stones in the northern forest at day-break or twilight, in prison chambers, and by deep forest pools. Though it closely skirts the borders of the fantastic, it never becomes quite fantastic Mr. MacICaye has made excellent poetic use of his knowledge of Scandinavian poetry. In the recunent wail of Fenris, for example, how faithful is the reproduction of the cadence and color of the alliterative stave : " Free me, Freyja I Frore am I, frost-bit ; Go we together into greenwood glad I Mirk under moon-mist mad, will meet thee. Hunt thee from hiding, thy heart-beats hear. " Fenris is the only character who speaks in Scandi- navian metre. The others all use blank verse of a nervous, sometimes a little too nervous, quality. It is, nevertheless, a poetic venture of a sincerity and magnitude for which there can be nothing but admiration." " In ' Fenris the Wolf ' Percy MacICaye has written a drama that shows triple greatness. There is the su- preme beauty of poetry, the perfect sense of dramatic proportion, and nobility of purpose. It is a work to dream over, to make one see glorious pictures, a work to uplift to soul heights." — Los Angeles Examiner. THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS A Comedy Decorated cloth, gilt top, SIO pages, ISmo, $1.25 net by mail $1.35 The principal characters are Geoffrey Chaucer Alisoun, the wife o( Bath; Madame Eglantine, the prioress, and Johanna, Marchioness o( Kent. The time oE the action is in April, 1387, and the scenes are the Tabard Inn, Southwark, another tavern on the road, and the ex- terior o( Canterbury Cathedral. The story, which u entertaining (rem first to last, has to do with Chaucer's adventure with the wile of Bath and his love (oi the prioress. "Every line of The Canterbury Pilgrims seems to liave been vnought with infinite pains. The play pos-> sesses splendid literary qualities — and it is actable." — Dramatic Mirror. " For a twentieth century author to take the char- acters of Chaucer's famo.us stories and give them parts in a new comedy in verse, is a bold, nay, a perilous under- taking. But Mr. Percy MacKaye has carried it through with a large measure of success. He has drunk deep of the great Father of Enghsb poetry's well, so that the comedy's delightfully quaint language has the real Chau- cerian ring. With much skill he portrays the pilgrims, picturing their respective failings and virtues so deftly that they appeal as strongly to modem taste as they did to our ancestors, yet preserving generally the mediaeval tone. . . . Specially amusing is Friar Hubert, a jovial, mischievous rogue, whose drollery is irresistible." — Oxford Chronicle. " Throughout the play the characters of these two most innocent lovers [Chaucer and the prioress] are main- tained with exquisite humor and feeling for life. Outside of the covers of Shakespeare it would be hard to find anything of the kind at once more original and more nearly on Shakespeare's level." — New York Times. CRITICAL OPINIONS A Few Early Comments upon "Sappho and Phaon. " New York Nation : " Mr. MacKaye's work is the most notable addition that has been made for many years to American dramatic literature. It is a true poetic tragedy, classic in form and spirit, not always glowing with the fire of genius, but nevertheless charged with happy inspiration; dignified, eloquent, passionate, imagin- ative and thoroughly human in its emotions. It is a great advance in almost every respect upon his 'Jeanne d'Arc,' and, whether considered in the light of literature or drama, need not fear comparison with anything that has been written by Stephen Phillips or John Davidson." Boston Daily Advertiser : ' ' The fire and vigor and beautiful imagery of Mr. MacKaye's happy experiment in classic form are evident. ... If, being suitably staged and acted, it fails to find favor with the theatei-going public, we shall be surprised. . . . This play is high- water mark in American dramatic verse." Boston Evening Transcript : " In fact we remember no drama by any modern writer that at once seems so readable and so actable, and no play that is so excellent in stage technique, so clear in characterization, and so completely filled with the atmosphere of romance and poetry." New York Evening Mail : " Elevated throughout in Its thought, pure in its symbolism, absorbing in its action, 'Sappho and Phaon' may be welcomed at once to. a high place in our literature." Philadelphia Evening Telegraph : " It is smcerely to be hoped that * bappho and Phaon ' may happen to strike the popular fancy, for it will be an elevating and Tefined addition to theatrical literature." New York Times : " Nor has any dramatist bound us in a spell like that which Percy MacKaye has woven into his poetic drama entided ' Sappho and Phaon.' "