PELEUS. There is a comfort in the midst of every uncertainty, saving (those which perplex the Gods and confound the godlike) Love's. Be comforted! not by my kisses, but by my words. Achilles may live til our old age. Ours! Had I forgotten thy divinity in thy beauty? Other mortals think their beloved partake of it, then mostly when they are gazing on their charms. But thy tenderness is more than godlike. Never have I known, never will I know, whatever in our inferior nature can resemble it. Ages shall fly over my tomb, while thou art flourishing in eternal youth, the desire of Gods. THETIS. I receive thy words, and bless them. Gods. may desire me: I have loved Peleus. Our union had many obstacles; the envy of mortals, the jealousy of immortals, hostility and persecution from around, from below, and from above. Remember these; and they will make thee silent; they will repress thy idle consolations. How cruel we once thought them! O that they could have been even more afflicting! Then might our loss. . no, never, never could it.. have been less severe. I see him in the dust, in agony, in death: I see his blood on the flints, his yellow hair flapping in its current, his hand unable to remove it from his eyes. I hear his voice; and it calls not upon me! Mothers are forgotten! It is weakness to love the weak! I could not save him! He would have left the caverns of Ocean, the halls of Pluto, the groves and meadows of Elysium, tho resounding with the songs of love and heroism, for a field of battle. PELEUS. He may yet live many years. Why should I repeat it? Troy hath been taken once already, and may stil resist more than one war. THETIS. He must perish; and at Troy; and now. PELEUS. The now of the Gods is more than life's duration : other Gods, other worlds, are formed within it. If indeed he must perish at Troy, his ashes will lie softly on hers. Thus fall our beauteous son! thus rest Achilles ! THETIS. Twice nine years have not passed over his head, twice nine have not yet rolled away, since the youth of Emathia, the swift, the golden-haired, were the only words sounded in the halls of Tethys. How many shells were broken for their hoarseness! how many reproofs were heard, for interrupting the slumbers. . of those who never slept ! But they said they did; and joy and kindness left the hearts of sisters. Why do I remember the day, why do I record it? . . . my Achilles dies! . . . it was the day that gave me my Achilles! Dearer he was to me than the light of heaven, before he ever saw it: what is he now! when, bursting forth on the Earth like its first dayspring, all the loveliness of Nature stands back, and grows pale and faint before his. PELEUS. O, thou art fallen! thou art fallen thro my embrace! Look up again! look, and forgive me! No: thy forgiveness I deserve not... but did I deserve thy love.. Thy solitude, thy abasement, thy fall on the earth are from me! The monster of Calydon made (as thou knowest) his first and most violent rush against this arm; no longer fit for war, no longer a defence to the people. And is the day too come when it no longer can sustain my Thetis ! THETIS. Protend it not to the skies! invoke not, name not, any Deity! I fear them all. Nay, lift me not thus up above thy head, O Peleus! reproaching the Gods with such an awful look.. with a look of beauty which they will not pity, with a look of defiance which they may not brook. PELEUS. Doth not my hand enclasp thy slender foot, at which the waves of Ocean cease to be tumultuous, |