________________________________________________
_ ACT I
[_Scene; a beautiful plain, shadowed on one side by an
overhanging rock, on the other a chesnut wood. Etna
at a distance._]
[_Enter Ceres, Proserpine, Ino and Eunoe._]
Pros. Dear Mother, leave me not! I love to rest
Under the shadow of that hanging cave
And listen to your tales. Your Proserpine
Entreats you stay; sit on this shady bank,
And as I twine a wreathe tell once again
The combat of the Titans and the Gods;
Or how the Python fell beneath the dart
Of dread Apollo; or of Daphne's change,--
That coyest Grecian maid, whose pointed leaves
Now shade her lover's brow. And I the while
Gathering the starry flowers of this fair plain
Will weave a chaplet, Mother, for thy hair.
But without thee, the plain I think is vacant,
Its [Footnote: There is an apostrophe _on_ the s.]
blossoms fade,--its tall fresh grasses droop,
Nodding their heads like dull things half asleep;--
Go not, dear Mother, from your Proserpine.
Cer. My lovely child, it is high Jove's command:-- [2]
The golden self-moved seats surround his throne,
The nectar is poured out by Ganymede,
And the ambrosia fills the golden baskets;
They drink, for Bacchus is already there,
But none will eat till I dispense the food.
I must away--dear Proserpine, farewel!--
Eunoe can tell thee how the giants fell;
Or dark-eyed Ino sing the saddest change
Of Syrinx or of Daphne, or the doom
Of impious Prometheus, and the boy
Of fair Pandora, Mother of mankind.
This only charge I leave thee and thy nymphs,--
Depart not from each other; be thou circled
By that fair guard, and then no earth-born Power
Would tempt my wrath, and steal thee from their sight[.]
But wandering alone, by feint or force,
You might be lost, and I might never know
Thy hapless fate. Farewel, sweet daughter mine,
Remember my commands.
Pros. --Mother, farewel!
Climb the bright sky with rapid wings; and swift
As a beam shot from great Apollo's bow
Rebounds from the calm mirror of the sea
Back to his quiver in the Sun, do thou
Return again to thy loved Proserpine.
(_Exit Ceres._)
And now, dear Nymphs, while the hot sun is high [3]
Darting his influence right upon the plain,
Let us all sit beneath the narrow shade
That noontide Etna casts.--And, Ino, sweet,
Come hither; and while idling thus we rest,
Repeat in verses sweet the tale which says
How great Prometheus from Apollo's car
Stole heaven's fire--a God-like gift for Man!
Or the more pleasing tale of Aphrodite;
How she arose from the salt Ocean's foam,
And sailing in her pearly shell, arrived
On Cyprus sunny shore, where myrtles
[Footnote: MS. _mytles._] bloomed
And sweetest flowers, to welcome Beauty's Queen;
And ready harnessed on the golden sands
Stood milk-white doves linked to a sea-shell car,
With which she scaled the heavens, and took her seat
Among the admiring Gods.
Eun. Proserpine's tale
Is sweeter far than Ino's sweetest aong.
Pros. Ino, you knew erewhile a River-God,
Who loved you well and did you oft entice
To his transparent waves and flower-strewn banks.
He loved high poesy and wove sweet sounds,
And would sing to you as you sat reclined
On the fresh grass beside his shady cave,
From which clear waters bubbled, dancing forth,
And spreading freshness in the noontide air. [4]
When you returned you would enchant our ears
With tales and songs which did entice the fauns,
[Footnote: MS. _fawns_]
With Pan their King from their green haunts, to hear.
Tell me one now, for like the God himself,
Tender they were and fanciful, and wrapt
The hearer in sweet dreams of shady groves,
Blue skies, and clearest, pebble-paved streams.
Ino. I will repeat the tale which most I loved;
Which tells how lily-crowned Arethusa,
Your favourite Nymph, quitted her native Greece,
Flying the liquid God Alpheus, who followed,
Cleaving the desarts of the pathless deep,
And rose in Sicily, where now she flows
The clearest spring of Enna's gifted plain.
[Sidenote: By Shelley [Footnote: Inserted in a later hand,
here as p. 18.] ]
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows,
In the Acroceraunian mountains,--
From cloud, and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks
With her rainbow locks,
Streaming among the streams,--
Her steps paved with green [5]
The downward ravine,
Which slopes to the Western gleams:--
And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
Then Alpheus bold
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook;
And opened a chasm
In the rocks;--with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It unsealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder
The bars of the springs below:--
And the beard and the hair
Of the river God were
Seen through the torrent's sweep
As he followed the light [6]
Of the fleet nymph's flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.
Oh, save me! oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me,
For he grasps me now by the hair!
The loud ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,
And divided at her prayer[,]
And under the water
The Earth's white daughter
Fled like a sunny beam,
Behind her descended
Her billows unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream:--
Like a gloomy stain
On the Emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,
As an eagle pursueing
A dove to its ruin,
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
Under the bowers [7]
Where the Ocean Powers
Sit on their pearled thrones,
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams,
Which amid the streams
Weave a network of coloured light,
And under the caves,
Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest's
[Footnote: The intended place of the apostrophe is not clear.]
night:--
Outspeeding the shark,
And the sword fish dark,
Under the Ocean foam,
[Footnote: MS. _Ocean' foam_ as if a genitive was meant;
but cf. _Ocean foam_ in the Song of Apollo
(_Midas_).]
And up through the rifts
Of the mountain clifts,
They passed to their Dorian Home.
And now from their fountains
In Enna's mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted,
Grown single hearted
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap [8]
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill[,--]
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel,--
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore;--
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky,
When they love, but live no more.
Pros. Thanks, Ino dear, you have beguiled an hour
With poesy that might make pause to list
The nightingale in her sweet evening song.
But now no more of ease and idleness,
The sun stoops to the west, and Enna's plain
Is overshadowed by the growing form
Of giant Etna:--Nymphs, let us arise,
And cull the sweetest flowers of the field,
And with swift fingers twine a blooming wreathe
For my dear Mother's rich and waving hair.
Eunoe. Violets blue and white anemonies
Bloom on the plain,--but I will climb the brow [9]
Of that o'erhanging hill, to gather thence
That loveliest rose, it will adorn thy crown;
Ino, guard Proserpine till my return.
(_Exit._)
Ino. How lovely is this plain!--Nor Grecian vale,
Nor bright Ausonia's ilex bearing shores,
The myrtle bowers of Aphrodite's sweet isle,
Or Naxos burthened with the luscious vine,
Can boast such fertile or such verdant fields
As these, which young Spring sprinkles with her stars;--
Nor Crete which boasts fair Amalthea's horn
Can be compared with the bright golden
[Footnote: MS. _the bright gold fields._]
fields
Of Ceres, Queen of plenteous Sicily.
Pros. Sweet Ino, well I know the love you bear
My dearest Mother prompts your partial voice,
And that love makes you doubly dear to me.
But you are idling,--look[,] my lap is full
Of sweetest flowers;--haste to gather more,
That before sunset we may make our crown.
Last night as we strayed through that glade, methought
The wind that swept my cheek bore on its wings
The scent of fragrant violets, hid
Beneath the straggling underwood; Haste, sweet,
To gather them; fear not--I will not stray.
Ino. Nor fear that I shall loiter in my task.
(_Exit._)
[Sidenote: (By Shelley.)]
Pros. (_sings as she gathers her flowers._) [10]
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf, and blade, and bud, and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child Proserpine.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish these young flowers
Till they grow in scent and hue
Fairest children of the hours[,]
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child Proserpine.
(_she looks around._)
My nymphs have left me, neglecting the commands
Of my dear Mother. Where can they have strayed?
Her caution makes me fear to be alone;--
I'll pass that yawning cave and seek the spring
Of Arethuse, where water-lilies bloom
Perhaps the nymph now wakes tending her waves,
She loves me well and oft desires my stay,--
The lilies shall adorn my mother's crown. [11]
(_Exit._)
(_After a pause enter Eunoe._)
Eun. I've won my prize! look at this fragrant rose!
But where is Proserpine? Ino has strayed
Too far I fear, and she will be fatigued,
As I am now, by my long toilsome search.
[_Enter Ino._]
Oh! you here, Wanderer! Where is Proserpine?
Ino. My lap's heaped up with sweets; dear Proserpine,
You will not chide me now for idleness;--
Look here are all the treasures of the field,--
First these fresh violets, which crouched beneath
A mossy rock, playing at hide and seek
With both the sight and sense through the high fern;
Star-eyed narcissi & the drooping bells
Of hyacinths; and purple polianthus,
Delightful flowers are these; but where is she,
The loveliest of them all, our Mistress dear?
Eun. I know not, even now I left her here,
Guarded by you, oh Ino, while I climbed
Up yonder steep for this most worthless rose:--
Know you not where she is? Did you forget
Ceres' behest, and thus forsake her child?
Ino. Chide not, unkind Eunoe, I but went
Down that dark glade, where underneath the shade [12]
[Footnote: MS. pages numbered 11, 12, &c., to the end
instead of 12, 13, &c.]
Of those high trees the sweetest violets grow,--
I went at her command. Alas! Alas!
My heart sinks down; I dread she may be lost;--
Eunoe, climb the hill, search that ravine,
Whose close, dark sides may hide her from our view:--
Oh, dearest, haste! Is that her snow-white robe?
Eun. No;--'tis a faun
[Footnote: MS. _fawn._]
beside its sleeping Mother,
Browsing the grass;--what will thy Mother say,
Dear Proserpine, what will bright Ceres feel,
If her return be welcomed not by thee?
Ino. These are wild thoughts,--& we are wrong to fear
That any ill can touch the child of heaven;
She is not lost,--trust me, she has but strayed
Up some steep mountain path, or in yon dell,
Or to the rock where yellow wall-flowers grow,
Scaling with venturous step the narrow path
Which the goats fear to tread;--she will return
And mock our fears.
Eun. The sun now dips his beams
In the bright sea; Ceres descends at eve
From Jove's high conclave; if her much-loved child
Should meet her not in yonder golden field,
Where to the evening wind the ripe grain waves
Its yellow head, how will her heart misgive. [13]
Let us adjure the Naiad of yon brook[,]
She may perchance have seen our Proserpine,
And tell us to what distant field she's strayed:--
Wait thou, dear Ino, here, while I repair
To the tree-shaded source of her swift stream.
(_Exit Eunoe._)
Ino. Why does my heart misgive? & scalding tears,
That should but mourn, now prophecy her loss?
Oh, Proserpine! Where'er your luckless fate
Has hurried you,--to wastes of desart sand,
Or black Cymmerian cave, or dread Hell,
Yet Ino still will follow! Look where Eunoe
Comes, with down cast eyes and faltering steps,
I fear the worst;--
[_Re-enter Eunoe._]
Has she not then been seen?
Eun. Alas, all hope is vanished! Hymera says
She slept the livelong day while the hot beams
Of Phoebus drank her waves;--nor did she wake
Until her reed-crowned head was wet with dew;--
If she had passed her grot she slept the while.
Ino. Alas! Alas! I see the golden car,
And hear the flapping of the dragons wings,
Ceres descends to Earth. I dare not stay,
I dare not meet the sorrow of her look[,]
The angry glance of her severest eyes. [14]
Eun. Quick up the mountain! I will search the dell,
She must return, or I will never more.
(_Exit._)
Ino. And yet I will not fly, though I fear much
Her angry frown and just reproach, yet shame
Shall quell this childish fear, all hope of safety
For her lost child rests but in her high power,
And yet I tremble as I see her come.
[_Enter Ceres._]
Cer. Where is my daughter? have I aught to dread?
Where does she stray? Ino, you answer not;--
She was aye wont to meet me in yon field,--
Your looks bode ill;--I fear my child is lost.
Ino. Eunoe now seeks her track among the woods;
Fear not, great Ceres, she has only strayed.
Cer. Alas! My boding heart,--I dread the worst.
Oh, careless nymphs! oh, heedless Proserpine!
And did you leave her wandering by herself?
She is immortal,--yet unusual fear
Runs through my veins. Let all the woods be sought,
Let every dryad, every gamesome faun
[Footnote: MS. _fawn._]
Tell where they last beheld her snowy feet
Tread the soft, mossy paths of the wild wood.
But that I see the base of Etna firm
I well might fear that she had fallen a prey
To Earth-born Typheus, who might have arisen [15]
And seized her as the fairest child of heaven,
That in his dreary caverns she lies bound;
It is not so: all is as safe and calm
As when I left my child. Oh, fatal day!
Eunoe does not return: in vain she seeks
Through the black woods and down the darksome glades,
And night is hiding all things from our view.
I will away, and on the highest top
Of snowy Etna, kindle two clear flames.
Night shall not hide her from my anxious search,
No moment will I rest, or sleep, or pause
Till she returns, until I clasp again
My only loved one, my lost Proserpine.
END OF ACT FIRST. _
Read next: Proserpine: A Drama In 2 Acts: Act 2
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