rnia THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE SOOTHSAYER BY VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM ^ THE SOOTHSAYER BY VERNER VON^HEIDENSTAM AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SWEDISH BY KAROLINE M. KNUDSEN BOSTON THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 1919 Copyright, 1919, by THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY All Rights Reserved For the right to perform this play in English, address the publishers, who are the author's representatives. The Pour Seas Press Boston, Mass., U. S. A. THE SOOTHSAYER PERSONS REPRESENTED APOLLO As God of Prophecy and as God of Punishment THE ERINYES The Fates: many in number EYRYTUS, The Soothsayer ERIGONE, his wife THEANO, his mother FILEAS, their servant GREY-BEARD, a herdsman PALE-FACE, another herdsman OTHER HERDSMEN SCENE Arcadia, near the north-east border TIME Some years before the Persian Invasion The Battle of Salamis, [B. C 480] THE SOOTHSAYER AN ARCADIAN PLAIN [A laurel-grove. Between the slen- der branches, there appears a hilly green- sward. At the left: a tent. At the right: a low altar, built up of stones, placed one upon another. Smoke rises In a column from the sac- rificial offering half- burnt. ] * * * [Eurytus and En- gone, with a basket of flowers, are kneeling In front of the altar. [7] Between these twd stands Theano, her hands upon their heads. Behind her kneels Fileas. ] *."** THEANO Eros ! Eros ! EURYTUS, ERIGONE, AND FILEAS Eros! THEANO Old am I ... tottering on the brink of the grave ; but yet have I lips with which to call thy name, O Eros ! ALL Eros! THEANO My son has taken into his tent a wife; to thee and to thy care commit I my children and all their offspring. What more can a mother desire for her children than their welfare! EURYTUS [softly] What is that, mother? I hear the twanging of citterns and the tread of dancing feet. [8] THEANO Always thou hearest so much that we others do never perceive. FlLEAS Even when Eurytus was so little that I bare him in my arms, he heard citterns and dance- steps. THEANO Then oughtest thou, as a faithful servant, to have admonished him against such delusions. EURYTUS Mother ! THEANO [more loudly] Eros! Much can my children and their off- spring go without never without thee. EURYTUS Mother ! THEANO Against other gods may they revolt never against thee. Stay thou but near them, and their lowly tent shall be to them more goodly than all of earth's splendours. [9] [Eurytus tries to rise but his mother presses him down.] THEANO So now do we, we three and our servant, greet thee, thou God of Love, thou of heaven and of earth; daily sacrifice shall burn to thee, always, in our hearts. [Eurytus releases himself from his mother's hand and springs up.] EURYTUS Mother! Dost thou not hear the dancing on the hill? THEANO The herders dance every afternoon now, dur- ing the honey-moon festivities. EURYTUS But they play the pipes when they dance. [He clutches his mother by the arm and drags her -with him.] [10] Am I so daft with all this wedding- wine or come not the dancers nearer and nearer? Dost thou not hear their tramp? THEANO I hear naught save our own voices. EURYTUS Uneasiness has fallen on my heart. THEANO Bliss itself can be so great, overpowering, that it behooves one to fear and to tremble. [From the far- thest distance are heard citterns and rhythmic dancing.] ERIGONE [rising] He mistrusts Love's divinity . . . For me, all has changed, since it has come to me. . . . I used to watch the herds, and the one day was like another. [She empties the basket and wreathes the altar with the flowers. ] [ii] [softly] Eurytus ! [Eurytus lifts her in his arms and holds her, high up, against the rising column of smoke.} EURYTUS Mistrust . . . I ! Life's gracious benefactor, thou : thanks and praise unto thee I give. May mine eye lose its sight ; may I, like a starved wolf, fall down upon that day when I shall deny thy greatness ! [Passionately kis- sing Erigone, he low- ers her again to the ground. ] All that I desire in this world, has come with thee, Erigone. Easily and smilingly, I see the years pass on. THEANO Let us gather more flowers before it grows dark. [12] FlLEAS [rising] I know where to find some . . . over there, upon that knoll. ERIGONE If only thou wert not so homely and old, dear Fileas. FILEAS Homely and old, and a good-natured fool ; yet limber in back, despite my full-sixty years. [He bends and kis- ses the hem of her tunic. ] Praises be to Eros! [The citterns and dancing now sound much nearer.] ERIGONE Come, Eurytus! EURYTUS Mine offering have I right here. [He draws, from under his mantle, a [13] twig with dried and brittle leaves.] THEANO Still hiding that twig? FILEAS It was I tucked that in thy hands, whilst thou wast lying asleep, one morning, when thou wast only a baby . . . and nobody guessed whence it came! THEANO Therefore, we thought, perchance, that the twig was the gift of good-luck . . . thy safeguard against the evil-eye. EURYTUS No longer need I such protection! [He fastens the twig between the stones of the altar.] THEANO [to Erigone] Let not night come before we shall have changed these bare stones into a mound of flowers. Eurytus! Pass me thy knife, that I may snip off the flower-stalks. ERIGONE Come with us ! EURYTUS Thou, most beautiful amongst the flowers! Is it not enough that I have gathered thee ! [He hands over his knife to Theano. Theano gazes at the knife, then raises it.] THEANO The knife says: The most beautiful amongst the flowers will I cut down, upon the day thou forsakest thy god. ERIGONE Who is that man who is coming, there, over the meadow ? He has wrapped his mantle about him, as though he were freezing, at mid-day, this warm autumn-month. FILEAS Wedding-gifts! Wedding-gifts! They will fill the tent ! [He beckons eager- ly and goes away, fol- lowed by the women.] * * * [15] [The citterns now sound much nearer and the rhythmic measure of the dance quickens to a jubilant chorus. Twilight falls.] * * * [Eurytus looks longingly after the others as they go away; lies down; puts his ear to the ground and listens; beats time with his hands. After a while, he gets up.] EURYTUS So dance no herders . . . Let but a dead man hear that dance and he will lose his soul's peace. [He follows the dance-step and hums the tune.] * * * [16] [Apollo strides for- ward. He is clad in a goatskin mantle; his arm is wreathed with laurel; his bow and arrows are *lung across his shoulders.] APOLLO Hapless man ! EURYTUS A strange salutation, that, to a man who, just now, in good-luck overflowing, has been kneeling in front of Love's altar. APOLLO Thy tongue sayeth one thing, thy heart another. A man in love doth lie. EURYTUS Hast lost thy way, O herdsman? APOLLO There is no path, I know not. Oft before, just as I have done this day, I have watched the sheep upon the hillside, where the muses dance. [17] EURYTUS [in greatest excitement] The muses dance . . . Thou jokest, not badly. [He laughs.] Surely, thou art both hungry and tired. Wilt not sit down and await the women? A wooden cup I own . . . wine thou doubtless hast thyself. Yesterday, another herder came with wedding- gifts; he had disguised himself as a buck, and so came near to meeting death at the hands of old Fileas. [He laughs.] The muses dance . . . My mother said, it was the herders at their play. APOLLO Thy mother heard nothing. Thou alone wast called. [ Eurytus pretends to feel around in the air with his hands, as though to find a support.] EURYTUS Wilt not show me thy gift . . . before the women come? [He laughs.] [18] APOLLO I have come to demand accounting for a gift that thou hast had already. Bow thy head ! [Eurytus, as though struck by lightning, bows low.} EURYTUS Thou art Phoebus Apollo! APOLLO Thou knewest who I was, when thou sawest me cross the meadow; and thou knewest that I would come, as soon as thou heardest the muses . . . because thou art a seer. Once upon a time, whilst I was herding the sheep, and passed this way, I saw a child who lay in a tent-opening and slept. Its elders were out in the fields. Then broke I off a laurel-twig from my wreath and laid it between the little one's fingers. EURYTUS How had that child aroused thy wrath that thou shouldst present it with so unlucky a gift ! APOLLO The gift was a symbol that I chose him, from his very childhood, to be my priest and bestowed [19] upon him the power to read the oracles. Upon him, from that time, the gods have kept their eyes fixed. EURYTUS And kept him awake at night. APOLLO After many years of wandering, I come upon the self-same path. There I find an altar raised not in my honour nor in that of the goddess but to that small boy amongst the gods ... to him who plays with his fillet . . . that half-grown boy who will never become a man. That was the seer's thanks. EURYTUS Name to me one of all thy priests who has not, sometime in his life, committed the same offense. APOLLO And did not each one, because of it, live to see the day of retribution? EURYTUS My beloved Erigone! APOLLO That least and most dissolute amongst the gods, thou settest up over the mighty and right- [20] cous. In the one hand, thou holdest the hand of a woman ; in the other, lieth the world, as a ball and thou throwest the world. I gave unto thee immortality and thou liest upon the grass that thou mayest gaze upon an opening blossom. EURYTUS Let me stay in the humble station in which I was born. Let me be a faithful husband and a good father, and may mine eyes be closed, some day, by two grateful hands. [He goes to the tent, and draws aside the overhanging flap.} Our abiding-place, where we should live for one another, wherein no sorrow should dwell! Methinks, in truth, there is little need of all these wedding-gifts. [He lifts and looks at several of the gifts and shows them to Apollo.} How quickly has day changed into night! Here is the staff I use when tending the herds. Upon the crook, Fileas, faithful old man, has carved the most graceful designs of plants [21] and of animals . . . Let me stay with my be- loved Erigone, far from earth's turmoils and honours! Here is our simple hollywood cup, oft filled with water, seldom with wine, always drained in gladness. Only the one cup we own . . . that is enough for us. Here is the sheep- skin, our bed . . . [From far away, a murmuring blends with the sounds of citterns and dancing. ] . VOICES The Barbarians! The Barbarians! EURYTUS What's the matter? APOLLO Thy mother would say : The herders are play- ing in the honey-moon festival. [Eurytus shuts his eyes and covers them with his hands.] EURYTUS I see the ocean. It is no longer blue. [22] APOLLO Hath the water lost its heavenly colour? EURYTUS [stepping forward] Myriads of brownish sails hide the water, as far as eye can see ; in the corner of every sail is a black square. [Shouts and cries are heard far away.] APOLLO Thou seest ships, not yet built, in sooth, but that soon will anchor off the coasts of Hellas. Tidings have just reached the people that the Persians are arming. The populace cry for a seer and a hero. EURYTUS I see a great battle . . . Many thousands of ships . . . Now, I no longer see them . . . My beloved Erigone ! Is it thou who cometh walking on the water, with thy basket? [He awakes from his trance and seems bewildered. ] [23] APOLLO I force no one. Choose, in thy youth, a god after thine own desire. Choose Love, and re- main in thy quiet tent; or, choose thy god from amongst the mighty and awesome; but choose only one. Serve him wholly, glorify him in all ways, and hold fast to him thou glorifiest. [He wraps himself in his goatskin and goes away.] * * * [ The sounds of citterns and dancing die away in the dis- tance. .Silence falls.] * * * [Eurytus follows a few steps, then stands still] EURYTUS Phoebus Apollo, hast thou left me? . . . Citterns tinkle, muses dance ! The ground shakes with their footsteps. Trees and plants and rocks sing. [He kicks aside the wooden cup and the other gifts.] [24] Dead things for meat and drink! Give me living tones, give me strings on which to play! [He listens, with his ear to the ground.] Farther and still farther away. His whirling court follows him. Now, I no longer hear the citterns, only the tapping of sandalled feet . . . Now, silence. It is as though I had been breath- ing in a purer, lighter day than ever before in my life then should be buried beneath a shower of heavy earth. Father of Light! Why hast thou forsaken me? ERIGONE [outside] Eurytus ! [Eurytus turns and opens his arms.] EURYTUS [softly] Erigone, my beloved Erigone ! [He picks up the sheepskin and buries his head in it.] [25] Good-night, Erigone! [ Overcome with his ecstasy, he hurries away. ] Avenging God! I come to serve thee, and to pay the penalty of my sin ! ERIGONE [outside] Eurytus ! [Erigone and The- ano enter the tent. Erigone lifts the bas- ket from her head.] Why does he not answer me? THEANO [with the knife still in her hand] He is no longer here. He has gone to the hill to play with the herders. ERIGONE The tent is up-turned . . . The gifts are thrown all around. [26] THEANO My child! ERIGONE Mother! Look, mother! The wreaths have been torn from the altar . . . THEANO Alas! May this presentiment that falls upon me be but a delusion ! ERIGONE What has happened? Eurytus! Dost thou not hear me any longer? THEANO [drawing Erigone to herself] For a woman, her love spurned, there is but one thing! * * * [Night draws near. The Erinyes and their followers glide forth, all alike, clothed in black, with fury- bulging eyes. They stand so close to one another, in a [27] Eurytus ! long row, that, when they lift their wings, along which their mantles have grown fast, they shadow everything behind them. Motionless, . their eyes partly averted, they linger in that position. ] [Far off, in the shadows, Erigone ap- pearsbemoaning and distraught.] [A long silence. A single drum-beat.] ERINYE [the one farthest to the right] A withered leaf fell from Time's Tree. [28] A Year of Darkness. [A long silence.] EEIGONE [still farther away] Eurytus ! [A long silence. A single drum-beat.] ERINYE [on the right] Again, a leaf fell from Time's Tree. ERINYE [on the left] Again a Year of Darkness. [A long silence.] ERINYE [on the right] She calleth no longer. * * * [ The Erinyes lower their wings. [29] One after the other, they slowly continue their wanderings. As they disappear, the darkness of night lightens back to twilight. ] * * * [ Where the tent stood formerly, there now is seen a grass- grown mound. The altar is upbuilt to the height of a man. At the front, a flight of steps reaches to the top.] * * * [Fileas comes with the last stone and fits it into the corner, at the top of the altar.] FILEAS The years pass years of darkness . . . Eros ! Thine altar I have finished I, humble man [30] though I be, yet good enough to serve thee . . . Never can I forget her, even though I be but a fool and a poor old wretch who scarcely durst crawl forward on my knees to kiss the hem of her garment! Eros! Blessed be thou, for the fragrant autumn thou hast sown in my heart ! * * * [Herdsmen enter stealthily, crouchingly. They are armed with boor -shields, poles and spears. They swarm around the altar and super- stitiously press their fore- and middle- fingers, first against the stones, and then against their breasts.] A GREY-BEARDED HERDER Can he protect us from Xerxes thy Eros? FILEAS He can help you so that, even with spears run through your bodies, still you can rejoice that you have lived. [31] GREY-BEARD The alarum from Salamis has reached even here. The townsfolk have gathered their gold into bags and have gone board the ships with their wives and their children. Us, they have left in the lurch. A PALE-FACED HERDER It was Eurytus the Soothsayer who frightened them to leaving the town when the serpents at the temple of Pallas refused to eat. GREY-BEARD Us herders, he forgot and betrayed. FILEAS Therefore, they have crowned him. PALE-FACE His name flies as an eagle over Hellas. GREY-BEARD Yet not so high but that a stone can reach him. PALE-FACE All day, he has stood on a rock by the ocean. In a trance, he has told what future shall come. FILEAS What advice has he given? [32] PALE-FACE To flee over the ocean to flee to a distant isle and to found there a new realm. FILEAS With new temples; wherefore not new gods as well? PALE-FACE Comes that battle so runs his oracle shall not one Hellene survive the night. GREY-BEARD Even now, the battle is raging before Salamis even since the break of day. Come here, thou canst see the masts of the ships. Soon will the Barbarians overrun us. My wife and her children I have hidden in a hollow tree. FILEAS I have no faith in any oracle of Eurytus. PALE-FACE Thou art a fool, old man Fileas. FILEAS That, I have been called always. Blessed be thou, O Eros, for all that thou hast given me in my life of foolishness. [33] GREY-BEARD There comes a man, running across the field. FILEAS [without turning] Mayhap, a messenger of victory. GREY-BEARD He seems more like a king; still more like the ghost of a king. His mantle flutters and he has a bloody wound at the temple. PALE-FACE He is followed by a crowd of men, who are throwing stones; they are bent over, as though tired; they have fallen behind. [suddenly] It is Eurytus the Soothsayer! THE OTHER HERDERS Eurytus ? FILEAS [without turning] They have been victorious. He has prophesied falsely. [Eurytus, crowned with laurel and fillet, but bleeding from a wound in his temple, runs up.] [343 EURYTUS Help me, ye good men, friends! They will take my life ! GREY-BEARD Should any take thy life, should we ... Welcome to thy native-place, thou celebrated priest crowned at Delphi, at Athens, at Olympia stoned before Salamis. EURYTUS Always, in repentance, one returns in the after- glow to those deserted whilst the sun was high. FILEAS A false soothsayer returns when he needs a hiding-place. [He turns and stays Eurytus, approaching the altar.] This is hallowed ground, on which such as thou mayst not put foot. EURYTUS Dear old Fileas! Dost thou no longer remember me? At least, let me give thee an alms, as thanks, for old time's sake. [35] [He puts his hand into the pouch hang- ing from his girdle. He brings up sev- eral pieces of money. He lays back a pair of Three. He offers the others to Fileas, who throws them away. The money falls to the ground. Eagerly, the herds- men gather up the pieces.] Thou forgettest thyself. FILEAS Thou didst lay the first stones. The dear leaves cried thine enchanted tongue, but thou didst deceive. It was the poor old man who, in his solitude, day after day, has laid stone on stone. This he has done because his heart has never stopped longing for something not vouchsafed him to reach. All honours thine; here, thou art but a stranger and nothing more. Execration, thou dost not require; that, thou bearest deep within thine own self. [36] GREY-BEARD Like the faithful servant that he is, Fileas has finished his work, as a memorial. EURYTUS Of me? Speak, Fileas! FILEAS Soon will the perjurer Eurytus think there exists naught in the world save himself. Has anyone here willed him aught save his fame, it will be to a friend gone astray an enemy : one to praise, in the open speech; to revile, in whispers. Two gods has he served and both has he deceived. EURYTUS But never her whom he hath held apart, in his thoughts, always. Lift ye your staves and strike if anyone here begrudge me peace again. [Quickly, he turns and speaks to File as.] Where are the two women? [No answer.] A hiding-place! Yea. I seek a hiding-place, where no one listeth to a seer and where the laurel-bushes have been cut down, to burn beneath [37] the pot ... a shady spot beneath the oaks, where invisible lyres sough through the foliage, and where Erigone standeth, gazing wonderingly, over the field toward that world she knoweth not. FILEAS And for her wouldst thou confess that thou art as one shipwrecked, in thy greatness? EURYTUS Yea. FILEAS A false soothsayer? EURYTUS Yea. [He draws his arm across his bloody forehead, to dry it.] Give me a drink. [File as takes the wooden cup out from his pouch.] FILEAS Dost thou recognize this cup? [Eurytus attempts to take it.] [38] EURYTUS Let me, just once more in my life, lift that up. FILEAS That passes not to lips profaned by oracle- words. It is mine, now. [He returns it to his pouch.] EURYTUS Wherefore cometh not Erigone? [No answer.] She knoweth not that I am here. FILEAS I believe that, surely. EURYTUS I could go for days and for months, and not weary, until I should reach the place where she is. FILEAS Prepare for a long journey. EURYTUS Whenever I would soothsay, I had the same vision, always. I seemed to be looking down into [39] that ice-clear, ice-dashing pool, wherein were re- flected the pointed leaves of the laurel-bush, like letters graven in stone. Whilst I would be read- ing the riddles, suddenly, Erigone would peer forth. Bending forward beneath the branches, she would speak to me quite other words . . . words of the lesser gods and of Love. Always, I heard, in this way, two voices that gainsaid one another. I spoke with double-tongue, so never was I in the wrong. FILEAS And now, before Salamis? EURYTUS I stood upon a rock in a trance, that I might the future foretell. Then, for the first time, I heard but the one voice, and that was not the voice of the God of Light. Erigone came, walk- ing upon the water, and she cried unto me : "Declare thou victory, and victory come, never again may I receive thee in my lowly herder's tent. Soon will other women, then, twist for thee thy wreaths. But speakest thou, instead, for flight, then shalt thou, till the end of time, no longer be able to withstand thy memories of me, but will fetch me and take me with thee. Let us flee, flee!" [40] Before I had time to consider, I lifted my arms, and loud so my voice was heard over all the shore, over all the gathered ships I uttered that basely- false interpretation: "Let us flee, flee!" FlLEAS When thou wentest away from thy mother and thy young wife, it was, nevertheless, by thine own free choice. EURYTUS A seer loseth his power of insight, when with a loving woman . . . insight for that which is and for that which is to come ; he seeth only the day that shineth upon him. He should walk along solitary paths ; Love becometh for him forbidden fruit. FILEAS Therefore ten times as enticing. EURYTUS He who once hath possessed good-luck can never forget that time. There, thou hast the gloomy tale of a false seer. FILEAS For many a year, I have seen the black troop of Erinyes watch over the land, where, of yore, the twittering of birds awoke me to the day's task. The shivering that now shakes us portends that they stand around us still. A cold wind is blowing but the grass lies still and the leaf stirs not. [The herders draw their mantles closely around them.] EURYTUS My beloved Erigone! FILEAS She called thee a long time. EURYTUS O hill that hath separated us ! I would call her name, until even this hill should answer! Stone me, and I will drag myself forward, that she may wipe the blood from my forehead. Give me a drink! [No answer.] Why keep ye all silence ? Deny me, an ye will, a cup of water, but put an end to my yearning. Hath my torment not paid, in full, the debt of a wandering man? . . . Nothing deserve I from you, nothing, but this alone: tell me, where [42] leadeth the shortest, the nearest, the quickest path to that tent wherein which Erigone now abideth. FILEAS Wilt thou give up all for the sake of finding her? EURYTUS All that thou demandest . . . And yet I tremble at the thought of seeing her again. She was young, when I went, and I remember her as young. She hath sorrowed and become old. FILEAS Fear not, Eurytus. A woman knows how to restore that she has lost. Erigone will not haste to meet thee in the light of day. She will hide herself under a covering. EURYTUS But, now darkness beginneth to fall . . . FILEAS When it shall grow dark around you both, and the cold stars shall flicker over the grassy mound, then shall you both, between yourselves, take balance of your life-account, as guilt or debt. Sun's Priest! Thy way went upward, not over striking enemies, but over the graves of women. [43] [He points to the grass-covered mound. Eurytus, stunned, stares down at it. ] For a long time, we saw about the town two women, one young and one old, who, deserted, hunted from place to place begging outside the tents. The wandering became too much for them. They put out their lives. [Eurytus totters forward and throws himself down on the grass-grown mound. He calls down into the ground.] EURYTUS Erigone ! [All the herdsmen stone him. Eurytus, half-sit- ting, lifts off his wreath and shakes out his long hair, that has become grey.] Under my wreath and my fillet, I have hidden from the world this greying hair. Avengers! Doth it not content ye that I suffer ! [44] [ They stone him. Citterns and rhyth- mic dancing are heard in the distance. Eurytus talks down into the ground.] Thou canst no longer answer me. There, she stood by the spring . . . Who was she ? I had never seen her before. So then I should have said: "Let me pass my hand over thy hair. My pretty child, thou shalt not follow me into my tent ... I cannot make any woman happy. That master I serve is cold as marble and hard as steel ; and he hath no wife. Hold thou me ever so fast, I must tear myself loose and wash my- self clean from earthly love." [He comes out of his trance.] Even upon her grave, I hear citterns and dance- steps. FILEAS May he, purified by repentance, find peace. [He pulls out the cup frm his pouch and goes away.] [45] EURYTUS A false priest to Apollo who played with holy things and who played with earthly wholly with neither. A Sun-God's Herald, who longed to lie in the shade, with his head upon a woman's lap, watching the clouds come and go. [Fileas conies back, holding carefully be- fore him the cup, filled with water. He stretches it out to Eurytus.] FILEAS I little thought that misfortune would have bowed thee so low. Eurytus! Forgive me! I hate thee no longer. EURYTUS Dost thou need to tell me that? Whosoever hateth can no longer avenge! [He clutches the cup in his hands.] Simple cup! How well I remember thee! Oft filled with water, seldom with wine, always drained in gladness. [He tries to drink but spills some of the water. ] [46] I cannot. [Fileas helps him steady the cup.] FILEAS Drink of the water from thine own spring. That will give thee a good sleep. [The citterns and dancing-steps sound nearer.] EURYTUS Always before, I thought that it tasted so de- licious . . . Fileas! Hearest thou not some- thing . . . like the twanging of a cittern and a tramp of feet? FILEAS It is but the beating of thine own heart. EURYTUS Mine heart ... Talk with wolves of doves' eyes, with the dead of our heaven. Father of Light ! Let me fall by thine arrow to sleep with her I forsook. Thy humming terrifies me. My feet bear my weight no more and I cannot weep. [Fileas drags with him the other herds- men and they all go quickly away.} [47] FlLEAS This is no longer a place of peace. Agony abides here. EURYTUS Could I but awake thee from thy sleep, Erigone . . .awake thee for a single short hour and hear thy voice ... To mother I would say : "Wherefore dost thou listen so anxiously ? That is only the herders playing and dancing." * * * [Apollo strides in, clad in his goatskin mantle, with his bow and arrows slung over his shoulders. He shoots down at Eurytus. In the same mo- ment, the sounds of the citterns and the dancing stop.] APOLLO Son of dust! Thou didst try to serve two gods; therefore, thy power became thy doom. [48] University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. JU Form L9-S PT9757. S711 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 001 267 329 9 Univeri Sout Lib