University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln 1891 Timoleon, Etc.: An online electronic text of the first edition (1891) Herman Melville Paul Royster (editor & depositor) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Melville, Herman and Royster, Paul (editor & depositor), "Timoleon, Etc.: An online electronic text of the first edition (1891)" (1891). Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries. 16. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. TIMOLEON ETC. NEW YORK THE CAXTON PRESS 1891 TO C OPYRIGHT, 1891, BY MY COUNTRYMAN THE CAXTON PRESS ELIHU VEDDER TABLE OF CONTENTS. TIMOLEON, . 7 AFTER THE PLEASURE PARTY, . 17 THE NIGHT MARCH, . 26 THE RAVAGED VILLA, . 26 THE MARGRAVE’S BIRTHNIGHT, . 27 MAGIAN WINE, . 29 THE GARDEN OF METRODORUS, . 30 THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN, . 30 THE WEAVER, . 32 LAMIA’S SONG, . 33 IN A GARRET, . 33 MONODY, . 34 LONE FOUNTS, . 34 THE BENCH OF BOORS, . 35 THE ENTHUSIAST, . 36 ART, . 37 BUDDHA, . 38 C _____’ S LAMENT, . 38 SHELLEY’S VISION, . 39 FRAGMENTS OF A LOST GNOSTIC POEM OF THE 12TH CENTURY, . 40 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS, . 41 vi. Contents. THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES, . 41 HERBA SANTA, . 43 FRUIT OF TRAVEL LONG AGO. VENICE, . 48 IN A BYE CANAL, . 48 PISA’S LEANING TOWER, . 50 TIMOLEON. IN A CHURCH OF PADUA, . 51 MILAN CATHEDRAL, . 52 (394 B. C.) PAUSILIPPO, . 53 THE ATTIC LANDSCAPE, . 57 I. THE SAME, . 57 F more than once, as annals tell, THE PARTHENON, . 58 I Through blood without compunction spilt, GREEK MASONRY, . 60 An egotist arch rule has snatched, GREEK ARCHITECTURE, . 60 And stamped the seizure with his sabre’s hilt, OFF CAPE COLONNA, . 60 And, legalised by lawyers, stood ; Shall the good heart whose patriot fire THE ARCHIPELAGO, . 61 Leaps to a deed of startling note, SYRA, . 62 Do it, then flinch ? Shall good in weak expire ? DISINTERMENT OF THE HERMES, . 65 Needs goodness lack the evil grit, THE APPARITION, . 66 That stares down censorship and ban, IN THE DESERT, . 67 And dumfounds saintlier ones with this— THE GREAT PYRAMID, . 68 God’s will avouched in each successful man ? L‘ ENVOI. Or, put it, where dread stress inspires A virtue beyond man’s standard rate, THE RETURN OF THE SIRE DE NESLE, . 70 Seems virtue there a strain forbid— 8 Timoleon. Timoleon. 9 Transcendence such as shares transgression’s fate ? Warding his brother from the field If so, and wan eclipse ensue, Spite failing friends dispersed and rallying foes. Yet glory await emergence won, Here might he rest, in claim rest here, Is that high Providence, or Chance ? Rest, and a Phidian form remain ; And proved it which with thee, Timoleon ? But life halts never, life must on, O, crowned with laurel twined with thorn, And take with term prolonged some scar or stain. Not rash thy life’s cross-tide I stem, Yes, life must on. And latent germs But reck the problem rolled in pang Time’s seasons wake in mead and man ; And reach and dare to touch thy garment’s hem. And brothers, playfellows in youth, Develop into variance wide in span. II. III. When Argos and Cleone strove Against free Corinth’s claim or right, Timophanes was his mother’s pride— Two brothers battled for her well : Her pride, her pet, even all to her A footman one, and one a mounted knight. Who slackly on Timoleon looked : Apart in place, each braved the brunt Scarce he (she mused) may proud affection stir. Till the rash cavalryman, alone, He saved my darling, gossips tell : Was wrecked against the enemy’s files, If so, ’twas service, yea, and fair ; His bayard crippled and he maimed and thrown. But instinct ruled and duty bade, Timoleon, at Timophanes’ need, In service such, a henchman e’en might share. Makes for the rescue through the fray, When boys they were I helped the bent ; Covers him with his shield, and takes I made the junior feel his place, The darts and furious odds and fights at bay ; Subserve the senior, love him, too ; Till, wrought to palor of passion dumb, And sooth he does, and that’s his saving grace. Stark terrors of death around he throws, But me the meek one never can serve, 10 Timoleon. Timoleon. 11 Not he, he lacks the quality keen Devotion one with ties how dear To make the mother through the son And passion that late to make the rescue ran. An envied dame of power, a social queen. But crime and kin—the terrorized town, But thou, my first-born, thou art I The silent, acquiescent mother— In sex translated ; joyed, I scan Revulsion racks the filial heart, My features, mine, expressed in thee ; The loyal son, the patriot true, the brother. Thou art what I would be were I a man. In evil visions of the night My brave Timophanes, ’tis thou He sees the lictors of the gods, Who yet the world’s fore-front shalt win, Giant ministers of righteousness, For thine the urgent resolute way, Their fasces threatened by the Furies’ rods. Self pushing panoplied self through thick and But undeterred he wills to act, thin. Resolved thereon though Ate rise ; Nor here maternal insight erred : He heeds the voice whose mandate calls, Foresworn, with heart that did not wince Or seems to call, peremptory from the skies. At slaying men who kept their vows, Her darling strides to power, and reigns—a Prince. V. Nor less but by approaches mild, And trying each prudential art, IV. The just one first advances him Because of just heart and humane, In parley with a flushed intemperate heart. Profound the hate Timoleon knew The brother first he seeks—alone, For crimes of pride and men-of-prey And pleads ; but is with laughter met ; And impious deeds that perjurous upstarts do ; Then comes he, in accord with two, And Corinth loved he, and in way And these adjure the tyrant and beset ; Old Scotia’s clansman loved his clan, Whose merriment gives place to rage : 12 Timoleon. Timoleon. 13 “Go,” stamping, “what to me is Right ? Within perturbed Timoleon here I am the Wrong, and lo, I reign, Such deeps were bared as when the sea And testily intolerant too in might :” Convulsed, vacates its shoreward bed, And glooms on his mute brother pale, And Nature’s last reserves show nakedly. Who goes aside ; with muffled face He falters, and from Hades’ glens He sobs the predetermined word, By night insidious tones implore— And Right in Corinth reassumes its place. Why suffer ? hither come and be What Phocion is who feeleth man no more. But, won from that, his mood elects VI. To live—to live in wilding place ; But on his robe, ah, whose the blood ? For years self-outcast, he but meets And craven ones their eyes avert, In shades his playfellow’s reproachful face. And heavy is a mother’s ban, Estranged through one transcendent deed And dismal faces of the fools can hurt. From common membership in mart, The whispering-gallery of the world, In severance he is like a head Where each breathed slur runs wheeling wide Pale after battle trunkless found apart. Eddies a false perverted truth, Inveterate turning still on fratricide. The time was Plato’s. Wandering lights VII. Confirmed the atheist’s standing star ; But flood-tide comes though long the ebb, As now, no sanction Virtue knew Nor patience bides with passion long ; For deeds that on prescriptive morals jar. Like sightless orbs his thoughts are rolled Reaction took misgiving’s tone, Arraigning heaven as compromised in wrong : Infecting conscience, till betrayed To second causes why appeal ? To doubt the irrevocable doom Vain parleying here with fellow clods. Herself had authorised when undismayed. To you, Arch Principals, I rear 14 Timoleon. Timoleon. 15 My quarrel, for this quarrel is with gods. Corinth recalls Timoleon—ay, Shall just men long to quit your world ? And plumes him forth, but yet with schooling It is aspersion of your reign ; phrase. Your marbles in the temple stand— On Sicily's fields, through arduous wars, Yourselves as stony and invoked in vain ? A peace he won whose rainbow spanned Ah, bear with one quite overborne, The isle redeemed ; and he was hailed Olympians, if he chide ye now ; Deliverer of that fair colonial land. Magnanimous be even though he rail And Corinth clapt : Absolved, and more ! And hard against ye set the bleaching brow. Justice in long arrears is thine : If conscience doubt, she’ll next recant. Not slayer of thy brother, no, What basis then ? O, tell at last, But savior of the state, Jove's soldier, man Are earnest natures staggering here divine. But fatherless shadows from no substance cast ? Eager for thee thy City waits : Yea, are ye, gods ? Then ye, ’tis ye Return ! with bays we dress your door. Should show what touch of tie ye may, But he, the Isle's loved guest, reposed, Since ye, too, if not wrung are wronged And never for Corinth left the adopted shore. By grievous misconceptions of your sway. But deign, some little sign be given— Low thunder in your tranquil skies ; Me reassure, nor let me be Like a lone dog that for a master cries.