Torments, or contamely, or the sneers Can break the heart where it abides. Alas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended, Alas for thee! Image of the Above. Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, At length they wept aloud and cried, "The sea! the sea!" Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb Of all whose step wakes power lulled in her savage lair Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built To woman's growth, by dreams so mild She knew not pain or guilt; And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble, If Greece must be A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, To Amphionic music, on some Cape sublime, SEMICHORUS I. Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made; Our dead shall be the seed of their decay, Our adversity a dream to pass away Their dishonour a remembrance to abide ! Voice without. Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends The keys of ocean to the Islamite. Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled, And British skill directing Othman might, This jubilee of unrevenged blood! Kill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape! SEMICHORUS I. Darkness has dawned in the East On the noon of time: The death-birds descend to their feast, Let Freedom and Peace flee far And follow Love's folding star! To the Evening land! SEMICHORUS II. The young moon has fed Her exhausted horn With the sunset's fire: The weak day is dead, But the night is not born; And, like loveliness panting with wild desire, And pants in its beauty and speed with light Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free! To climes where now, veiled by the ardour of day, From waves on which weary noon Between kingless continents, sinless as Eden, Prankt on the sapphire sea. SEMICHORUS I. Through the sunset of hope, Their shadows more clear float by The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, Burst like morning on dreams, or like Heaven on death, And Greece, which was dead, is arisen! CHORUS. The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam A brighter Hellas rears its mountains A new Peneus rolls its fountains Against the morning-star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep A loftier Argo cleaves the main, And loves, and weeps, and dies. O write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be ! Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, And leave, if nought so bright may live, Saturn and Love their long repose Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, O cease! must hate and death return? The world is weary of the past, EDIPUS TYRANNUS; OR, SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT. A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS, TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC. Choose Reform or Civil War, When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs, ADVERTISEMENT. THIS Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays, (an arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect their Dramatic representations,) elucidating the wonderful and appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written by some learned Theban, and from its characteristic dulness, apparently before the duties on the importation of Attic salt had been repealed by the Bootarchs. The tenderness with which he beats the PIGS proves him to have been a sus Baotia; possibly Epicuri de grege Porcus; for, as the poet observes, "A fellow feeling makes us wond'rous kind." The No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last act. word Hoydipouse, (or more properly Edipus,) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly indicated. Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled, "Swellfoot in Angaria," and " Charité," the Translator might be tempted to give them to the reading Public. CHORUS of the Swinish Multitude.-Guards, Attendants, Priests, &c. &c. SCENE-Thebes ACT I. SCENE L-A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death'sheads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of boars, sows, and sucking-pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple. Enter SWELLFOOT, in his royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs. Swellfoot. THOU supreme Goddess! by whose power divine These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [He contemplates himself with satisfaction. (Nor with less toil were their foundations laid,*) Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres The Swine. Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh! Ha! what are ye, Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies, Swine. Aigh! aigh! aigh! Swellfoot. What! ye that are The very beasts that offered at her altar With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards, Ever propitiate her reluctant will When taxes are withheld? Swine. Ugh! ugh! ugh! What! ye who grub With filthy snouts my red potatoes up In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats * See Universal History for an account of the number of people who died and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians, who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their tyrants. |