But they can nothing aid me. I have sought From them what they could not bestow, and now I search no further. Witch. What could be the quest Which is not in the power of the most powerful, The rulers of the invisible? Man. But why should I repeat it? A boon; 'twere in vain. Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it. Man. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same; My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards My spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, Nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death, From wither'd bones, and skulls, and heap'd up dust, The nights of years in sciences untaught, Such as, before me, did the Magi, and He who from out their fountain dwellings raised As I do thee;-and with my knowledge grew Witch. Proceed. Man. Oh! I but thus prolong'd my words, Witch. Spare not thyself—proceed. Man. She was like me in lineaments; her eyes, Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; 7 The philosopher Jamblicus. The story of the raising of Eros and Anteros may be found in his life by Eunapius. It is well told.-["It is reported of him," says Eunapius, "that while he and his scholars were bathing in the hot baths of Gadara, in Syria, a dispute arising concerning the baths, he, smiling, ordered his disciples to ask the inhabitants by what names the two lesser springs, that were nearer and handsomer than the rest, were called. To which the inhabitants replied, that 'the one was called Eros, and the other Anteros, but for what reason they knew not.' Upon which Jamblicus, sitting by one of the springs, put his hand in the water, and muttering some few words to himself, called up a fair-complexioned boy, with goldcoloured locks dangling from his back and breast, so that he looked like one that was washing and then, going to the other spring, and doing as he had done before, called up another Cupid, with darker and more dishevelled hair: upon which both the Cupids clung about Jamblicus; but he presently sent them back to their proper places. After this, his friends submitted their belief to him in everything."] : But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty : Her faults were mine-her virtues were her own- Witch. With thy hand? Man. Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart; It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed Blood, but not hers-and yet her blood was shed; I saw and could not stanch it. Witch. And for this A being of the race thou dost despise, The order, which thine own would rise above, The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour- But peopled with the Furies;-I have gnash'd The affluence of my soul-which one day was I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found, Witch. That I can aid thee. Man. It may be To do this thy power Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. With any torture so it be the last. Witch. That is not my province; but if thou Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes. Man. I will not swear-Obey! and whom? the spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave Of those who served me-Never! Witch. Is this all? Hast thou no gentler answer?-Yet bethink thee, And pause ere thou rejectest. Man. Witch. Enough! I may retire then-say! Man. I have said it. Retire! [The WITCH disappears. Man. (alone.) We are the fools of time and terror: Days Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. In all the days of this detested yoke— Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain, In all the days of past and future, for In life there is no present, we can number And that is nothing. If they answer not-- That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, 8 The story of Pausanias, king of Sparta, (who commanded the Greeks at the battle of Platea, and afterwards perished for an attempt to betray the Lacedæmonians), and Cleonice, is told in Plutarch's life of Cimon; and in the Laconics of Pausanias the sophist in his description of Greece.-[The following is the passage from Plutarch :— "It is related, that when Pausanias was at Byzantium, he cast his eyes upon a young virgin named Cleonice, of a noble family there, and insisted on having her for a mistress. The parents, intimidated by his power, were under the hard necessity of giving up their daughter. The young woman begged that the light might be taken out of his apartments, that she might go to his bed in secresy and silence. When she entered he was asleep, and she unfortunately stumbled upon the candlestick, and threw it down. The noise waked him suddenly, and he, in his confusion, thinking it was an enemy coming to assassinate him, unsheathed a dagger that lay by him, and plunged it into the virgin's heart. After this he could never rest. Her image appeared to him every night, and with a menacing tone repeated this heroic verse, 'Go to the fate which pride and lust prepare!' The allies, highly incensed at this infamous action, joined Cimon to besiege him in Byzantium. But he found means to escape thence; and, as he was still haunted by the spectre, he is said to have applied to a temple at Heraclea, where the manes of the dead were consulted. There he invoked the spirit of Cleonice, and entreated her pardon. She appeared, and told him he would soon be delivered from all his troubles, after his return to Sparta :' in which, it seems, his death was enigmatically foretold."-LANGHORN's Plutarch, vol. iii. p. 279.] |