Pierre Corneille (1606–1684). Polyeucte.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Act II
S
I seek a dearer shrine, for I adore
Nor Jove, nor Mars, nor Fortune—but Pauline.
This fruit now ripening late my hand would glean:
You know, my friend, the god who wings my way,—
You know the only goddess I obey:
What reck the gods on high our sacrifice and prayer?
An earthly worship mine, sole refuge from despair!
O magic word, that turns my grief to song!
Yet, if she now forget each fair, fond vow?
She loved me once,—but does she love me now?
On that sweet face shall I but trouble see—
Who hope for love undimmed, for ecstasy?
Great Decius gives her hand, but if her heart
Be mine no more—than let vain hope depart!
This mandate binds her father only; she
Shall give no captive hand—her heart is free:
No promise wrung, no king’s command be mine to claim,
Her love the boon I crave; all else an empty name!
She loves no more? I grope! O give me light!
In Rome each matron’s kind! In Rome all maids are fair!
Let lips meet other lips—seek for caresses there!
No stately Claudia will refuse—no Julia proud disdain;
A hero captures every heart, from Antioch to Spain!
One heart for me—Pauline’s! One boast—that dearest name!
Her love was virgin gold! O ne’er shall baser metal ring
From mine, who live her name to bless! her peerless praise to sing!
O, words are naught, till that I see her face,—
Then doubly naught till I my love embrace.
In every war my hope was placed in death,
Her name upon my lips at every breath:
My rank, my fame, now hers and hers alone,
What is not hers, hers only—I disown!
Say, was she cold? My love! My only life!
If this be true!—ye gods—can I be I?
I thought my strength was oak—’tis but a reed!
Pauline is wed, then am I lost indeed!
Hope hid beyond the cloud, yet still fond hope was there:
But now all hope is dead, lives only black despair!
Pauline another’s wife?
He came, he saw, he conquered thine adored.
Illustrious, from a line of kings he came—
Cold comfort for a wound no cure can heal!
My cause is lost,—foredoomed without appeal!
Malignant Jove, to drag me back to-day!
Relentless Fate, to quench hope’s dawning ray!
Take back your gifts! One boon alone I crave,
That only boon to none denied—the grave.
Yet would I see her, breathe one last good-bye,
Would hear once more that voice before I die!
My latest breath would still my homage pay,—
That memory mine, when lost to realms of day.
What worser ill can dull despair befall?
She will not see me?
Who welcomes death can life’s short pain endure!
The lover, losing all, speaks hardly like a lover!
While passion still is lord—the passion—swept is slave—
From this last bitterness would I Severus save!
The hand that wounds I kiss—love vanquishes despair;
Fate only, not Pauline, the foe that I accuse,
No plighted faith she breaks who did this hand refuse.
Duty—her father—Fate—these willed, she but obeyed;
Not hers the woe, the strife that envious Ate made!
Untimely, Fortune’s shower must drown me, not revive;
Too lavish and too late her fatal gifts arrive.
The golden apple falls, the gold is turned to dross:
When Fate at Fortune mocks, all gain is only loss!
To the last drop the cup that Fate ordained.
She knows thee hero, but she feared that pain
Might prove thee also man—by passion slain.
She feared Despair, who gains the victory
O’er other men, might e’en thy master be!
She loves the Armenian!
P
Hard-wrung, acquitted,—his my love alway!
Who has my hand, he holds—shall hold—my heart!
Truth is my guide,—let sophistry depart!
Had Fate been kind, then had Pauline been thine,
Heart, faith and duty, linked with bliss divine.
In vain had fickle Fortune barred the way,
Want had been wealth with thee, my guide, my stay,
And poverty had fallen from the wings
Of soaring love, who mocks the wealth of kings!
Not mine to choose, for he—my father’s choice—
Must needs be mine; yes, when I heard his voice,
Duty must echo be: if thou couldst cast
Before my feet an emperor’s crown,—a past
By worth and glory lit—beloved, adored—
Yet at my father’s word, ‘Not this thy lord;
Take one despised—nay, loathed—to share thy bed,’—
Him, and not thee, beloved, would I wed.
Duty, obedience, must have been the part
Of me, who own their sway, e’en with a broken heart!
One poor faint sigh cures love’s infirmity!
Thy heart thy tool, o’er every passion queen,
Beyond all change and chance thou sit’st serene!
In easy flow can pass thy love new-born
From cold indifference to colder scorn;
Such resolution is the equal mate
Of god or monster, love, aversion, hate.
This fine-spun adamant Ithuriel’s spear
Could never pierce: for other stuff is here![Points to himself.
No faint ‘Alas!’ no swift-repented sigh
Can heal the cureless wound from which I die.
Sure, reason finds that love his easy prey
With Lethe aye at hand to point the way;
With ordered fires like thine, I too could smother
A heart in leash, find solace in another.
Too fair, too dear—from whom the Fates me sever!
Thou hast no heart to give—thou lov’dst me never!
Tho’ flame leap up no more, the embers glow;
Far other speech and voice, and mien were mine,
Could I forget that once thou call’dst me thine!
Tho’ reason rules, yes, gains the mastery—
No queen benignant, but a tyrant she!
Oh, if I conquer—if the strife I gain,
Yet memory for aye is linked with pain!
I feel the charm that binds me still to thee;
If duty great, yet great thy worth to me:
I see thee still the same, who waked the fire
Which waked in me ineffable desire.
Begirt by crown of everlasting fame
Thou art more glorious—yet art still the same.
I know thy valour’s worth,—well hast thou justified
That bounding hope of mine, though fruitage was denied,
Yet this same fate which did our union ban
Hath made me, fated—wed another man.
Let Duty still be queen! Yea, let her break
The heart she pierces, yet can never shake.
The virtue, once thy pride in days gone by—
Doth that same worth now merit blasphemy?
Bewail her bitter fruit—but praised be
The rights that triumph over thee and me!
To all but grief’s excess, and fortune most unkind.
Forgive that I mistook—nay, treated as a crime—
Thy constancy of soul, unequalled and sublime;
In pity for my life forlorn, my peace denied,
Ah! show thyself less fair,—one least perfection hide!
Let some alloy be seen, some saving weakness left,
Take pity on a heart of thee and Heaven bereft!
One faintest flaw reveal, to give my soul relief!
Else, how to bear the love that only mates with grief?
Too well my fight proclaim; yes, I have loved;
The traitor sigh, the tear unbid, attest
The combat fierce—the warrior sore distrest.
Say, who can stanch these wounds, that armour mend?
Thou who hast pierced, thou, thou alone defend!
Ah, if thou honourest my victory—
Depart, that thou may’st still defender be!
So dry the tears that, to my shame, still flow—
So quench the fire would work my overthrow!
Yes, go, my only friend, with me combine
To end my torture, for thy pain is mine!
For me one offering left: ’tis this: Endure!
Thy glory shall be mine, my load I bear,
So, spotless, thou thy peerless crown shalt wear!
Farewell, my love, farewell; I go to prove my faith,
To bless, to save thy life, so will I mate with death!
If prostrate from the blow, there yet remains of life
Enough to summon death, and end the piteous strife!
There, in my chamber, will I pray for thee!
When thou art gone, great Heaven shall hear my cry;
Grief’s fruit for thee be hope—death—immortality!
May Heaven shower bliss and peace on Polyeucte and thee!
And Jove receive my hero—to the sky!
Pauline—too fair—too dear—I can no more!
But now, at least, there is no cause for fears:
Thy dream is but a dream—is naught, is vain;
Severus pardons. Gone that cause for pain!
Add not that other woe—forgotten fear!
Ah! let me breathe, some respite give from trouble,
Those fears, half-dead, thou dost revive, redouble!
All, all is food for dread to my despair,
As thou unveil’st, begirt in lurid light,
The pallid ghost that slew me in the night!
Yet, tho’ his truth, his faith, well-proved be,
Most baleful is his presence here to me;
Yea, tho’ he would all ill for me undo—
Yet he hath power, he loves—he came to woo.
P
Thy grief lay down, thy fearful heart restore!
Let night’s dark dream with superstition die,
The dream is past, for here in life am I!
And half the dream is true, and Fate is strong;
Severus have I seen, who thought him dead!
Secure with thee am I! Tho’ great the knight,
Thy father will command to do me right;
The general is a man of honour,—he
Would ne’er that honour dim by treachery!
He comes in amity, our friend, our guest;
To greet his worth and valour now my quest.
But he will come no more,—this grace I had.
He came in peace, who all my peace hath marred.
Who would run safely, every step must guard;
The wife who danger courts but courts her fall—
My husband, aid me!—I would tell thee all!
His worth, his charm, do my weak hearth enflame—
A traitor here! And he is aye the same!
If I should gaze, and long—’gainst virtue, honour, sense,
The citadel I yield, and mine my own defence!
I know my virtues sure, and fair my fame,
But struggle is defeat,—and combat shame!
He only who has lost thee is undone;
His noble grief the cost of all my bliss,
Ah, Cleopatra’s pearl was naught to this!
The more my faults I see, the more thy truth I learn,
The more do I admire——
C
With holy fire. The victim they prepare;
On thee alone they wait, our rites to share.
Severus flies my sight; to him I owe
My absence—not, alas! to him alone!
Go thou, and oh, remember he is great;
In his sole hands Severus holds thy fate!
Oh, not from him the lance that Heaven will send![Exeunt P
Thou art a Christian, and canst thou forget?
Not mine to fly a worship I disown,
By me Jehovah, King of kings, be known!
Not mine to tremble as I kiss the rod!
I conquer by the Cross, I fight for God!
Thou wouldst abstain! For me another course—
From Heaven the call, and Heaven will give the force!
What! Yield to evil! His Cross on my brow!
His freemen we! O fight, Nearchus, now!
For us our Lord was scourged, pierced, tortured, slain!
For us He bled! Say, has He died in vain?
He died for me! So death is victory!
Why yield to time and chance what death assures?
Death but the gate of life that aye endures.
If I be His—let me be His alone!
The faith that soars shall full fruition own;
Who trusts, yet fears and doubts, his faith is dead!
Live to protect the flock, so sore oppressed.
The rack! The cross! I might my Lord disown!
Who fears denial does at heart deny;
Who doubts the power of faith makes faith a lie!
Thou wert my staff, to show the Truth, the Way,
Must I now urge thee to the realms of day?
Thou fearest death?
The way that thou hast shown—that way He trod;
His way be ours to lead man’s soul to God—
For heathen shrine—to rear His altar fair,—
The deathless hope alone can kill despair!
Thou said’st: ‘If Him thou wilt for pattern take,
Then leave wife, wealth, home, all for His dear sake!’
Alas, that love of thine, now weak and poor,
Glows yet within my breast—and shall endure;
Ah, must the dawn of this my perfect day
Find thy full light beclouded, dimmed, astray?
The grace that once was mine, that grace hast thou.
No worldly thought has checked the flow, no guilty act has stained;
Thy wings are strong, while mine are weak; thy love is fresh, unfeigned,—
To these, thy heights, I cannot soar, held down by sense and sin,
How can I storm the citadel?—the traitor lurks within!
Forsake me not, my God! Thy spirit pour!
Oh, make me true to Him whom I adore!
With Thee I rise,—the flesh, the world, defy,
Thou, who hast died for me, for Thee I die!
Yes, I will go! With heaven-born zeal I burn
I will be free,—all Satan’s lures I spurn;
Death, torture, outrage, these will I embrace,
To nerve my heart and arm, Heaven grant me grace!
I hail my master—recognise my friend;
The old faith wanes,—we light her funeral pyre,
Her ashes fall before our holy fire;
Come, trample under foot the gods that men have wrought;
The rotten, helpless staff is broke, is gone—is naught.
Their darkness felt they own, but let them see the light!
Their gods of stone, of clay, but vampires of the night!
Their dust shall turn to dust,—shall moulder with the sod,
Ours for His name to fight:—the issue is with God.
I lived to doubt His word—I die to His Will!