The Greatest Christmas Books of All Time. Люси Мод Монтгомери
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At length! O festal hour! O nuptial day! On! on!
Accomplished is the guilt, but not the recompense.
Complete the task while yet thy hands are strong to act.
Why dost thou linger still? Why dost thou hesitate
Upon the threshold of the deed? Thou canst perform it.
Now wrath has died within me, and my soul is filled
With shame and deep remorse. Ah me, what have I done,
Wretch that I am? Wretch that thou art, well mayest thou
mourn,
For thou hast done it!—At that thought delirious joy
O'ermasters me and fills my heart which fain would grieve.
And yet, methinks, the act was almost meaningless,
Since Jason saw it not; for naught has been performed
If to his grief be added not the woe of sight.
Jason.
[discovering her.] Lo, there she stands upon the lofty battlements! Bring torches! Fire the house! That she may fall ensnared By those devices she herself hath planned.
Medea.
[derisively.] Not so; But rather build a lofty pyre for these thy sons; Their funeral rites prepare. Already for thy bride And father have I done the service due the dead; For in their ruined palace have I buried them. One son of thine has met his doom; and this shall die Before his father's face.—
Jason.
By all the gods, and by the perils of our flight,
And by our marriage bond which I have ne'er betrayed,
I pray thee spare the boy, for he is innocent.
If aught of sin there be, 'tis mine. Myself I give
To be the victim. Take my guilty soul for his.
Medea.
'Tis for thy prayers and tears I draw, not sheathe the
sword.
Go now, and take thee maids for wives, thou faithless one;
Abandon and betray the mother of thy sons.
Jason.
And yet, I pray thee, let one sacrifice atone.
Medea.
If in the blood of one my passion could be quenched,
No vengeance had it sought. Though both my sons I slay,
The number still is all too small to satisfy
My boundless grief.
Jason.
Then finish what thou hast begun—
I ask no more—and grant at least that no delay
Prolong my helpless agony.
Medea.
Now hasten not,
Relentless passion, but enjoy a slow revenge.
This day is in thy hands; its fertile hours employ.
Jason.
O take my life, thou heartless one.
Medea.
Thou bidst me pity—
Well—[She slays the second child]—'Tis done! No more atonement, passion, can I offer thee. Now hither lift thy tearful eyes, ungrateful one. Dost recognize thy wife? 'Twas thus of old I fled. The heavens themselves provide me with a safe retreat. Twin serpents bow their heads submissive to the yoke.
For there suddenly appears in the air a chariot drawn by dragons.
Now, father, take thy sons; while I, upon my car,
With winged speed am borne aloft through realms of air.
Jason.
[calling after as she vanishes]. Speed on through realms of air that mortals never see: But heaven bear witness, whither thou art gone, no gods can be.
3. ROMAN COMEDY
We have already said that the natural mimicry of the Italian peasantry no doubt for ages indulged itself in uncouth performances of a dramatic nature, which developed later into those mimes and farces, the forerunners of Roman comedy and the old Medley-Satura. We have also shown how powerfully Rome came under the influence of Greek literature and Greek art; and how the first actual invasion of Rome by Greek literature was made under Livius Andronicus, who, in 240 BC, produced the first play before a Roman audience translated from the Greek into the Roman tongue. What the history of native comedy would have been, had it been allowed to develop entirely apart from Greek influence, we shall never know, since it did come powerfully under this influence, and retained permanently the form and character which it then acquired.
When Rome turned to Greece for comedy, there were three models from which to choose: the Old Athenian Comedy of Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, full of criticism boldly aimed at public men and policies, breathing the most independent republican spirit; the Middle Comedy, which was still critical, directed, however, more at classes of men and schools of thought than at individuals; and New Comedy, the product of the political decadence of Greece, written during a period (340–260 BC) when the independence which had made the trenchant satire of the Old Comedy possible had gone out of Greece. These plays aimed at amusement and not at reform. Every vestige of politics was squeezed out of them, and they were merely society plays, supposed to reflect the amusing and entertaining incidents of the social life of Athens. The best known writers of New Comedy were Philemon, Apollodorus, and Menander, only fragments of whose works have come down to us.
Which of these models did the Romans follow? There is some evidence in the fragments of the plays of Nævius, a younger contemporary of Andronicus, and who produced his first play in 235 BC, that he wrote in the bold spirit of the Old Comedy, and criticized the party policies and leaders of his time. But he soon discovered that the stern Roman character was quite incapable of appreciating a joke, especially when its point was directed against that ineffably sacred thing, the Roman dignity. For presuming to voice his criticisms from the stage the poet was imprisoned and afterward banished from Rome.
Perhaps warned by the experience of Nævius, Roman comic poets turned to the perfectly colorless and safe society plays of the New Comedy for translation and imitation. They not only kept within the limitations of these plays as to spirit and plot, but even confined the scene itself and characters to some foreign city, generally Athens, and for the most part were careful to exclude everything