WERNER'S

Readings and Recitations.

PHEIDIPPIDES.

ROBERT BROWNING.

[Athens is attacked by Persia, and sends Pheidippides, the great Athenian runner, to Sparta to declare the fact, and solicit aid. This, Sparta cruelly refuses, and Pheidippides returns. On his way back, he is met by the god Pan, who kindly offers to assist Athens, and says he will also reward the brave runner according to his deserts.]

RCHONS of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!

See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre, that speaks! Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!

Persia has come, we are here, where is she?" Your command I obeyed,

Ran and raced; like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city; two days, two nights did I

burn

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke; breath served but for "Persia has come!
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth;
Razed to the ground is Eretria-but Athens, shall Athens sink,
Drop into dust and die,-the flower of Hellas utterly die,
The wide world gazing at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?

Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink?

How-when? No care for my limbs! there is lightning in all and

some,

Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens-Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond?
Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,
Malice, each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!
Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood
Quivering, the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from
dry wood:

Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate?

Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond

Swing of thy spear?

must!"

Phoibos and Artemis, clang them, "Ye

Friends, look you here! Lo, their answer at last!

"Has Persia come,-does Athens ask aid,-may Sparta befriend?
Nowise precipitate judgment—too weighty the issue at stake!
Count we no time lost which lags through respect to the gods!
Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take
Full circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast.
Athens must wait, patient as we—who judgment suspend."

Athens, except for that sparkle,—thy name, I had mouldered to ash!

That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back,
Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!
Yet "O gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain,
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again,
"Have you kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you ere-
while?

Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash.
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!"

Such my cry as, rapid I ran o'er Parnes' ridge;
Gulley and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.
Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:
"Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge
Better!"-when-ha! What was it I came on, of wonders that
are?

There in the cool of a cleft, sat he-majestical Pan!

Ivy-drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss-cushioned his hoof;
All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly-the curl
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe,

As under the human trunk, the goat-thighs I saw.
"Halt, Pheidippides!" halt I did, my brain of a whirl:

"Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began: "How is it,-Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!
Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?
Ay, and still and forever her friend! Put Pan to the test!
Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith
In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, The goat-god saith:
When Persia-so much as strews not the soil,-is cast in the sea,
Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,
And with oak and olive and bay, made one cause with the free and

66

the bold.'

'Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge'!” (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear

Fennel,-whatever it bode-I grasped it a-tremble with dew) "While as for thee, . . "But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto

Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer but flew. Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's

edge!

Fan for Athens! Pan for me! myself have a guerdon too!

Then Miltiades spoke: "And thee, best runner of Greece,
Whose limbs did duty indeed,-what gift is promised thyself?
Tell it us straightway,—Athens the mother demands of her son!"
Rosily blushed the youth; he paused; but, lifting at length

His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength

Into the utterance-" Pan spoke thus: "For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

my

mind!

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to
Fight I shall, with the foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,—
Pound-Pan helping us-Persia to dust, and, under the deep,
Whelm her away forever; and then,-no Athens to save,-
Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,-
Hie to my house and home; and, when my children shall creep
Close to my knees,-recount how the god was awful yet kind,
Promised their sire reward to the full-rewarding him-so!"

Unforeseeing one! Yes he fought on the Marathon day;
So when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!
'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield,
Ran like fire once more; and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,
Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay,
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died-the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute
Is still "Rejoice"!-his word which brought rejoicing indeed.
So is Pheidippides happy forever, the noble strong man
Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god
loved so well;

He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,

So to end gloriously-once to shout, thereafter be mute:

"Athens is saved!"-Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.