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PERSONS. 2. DIAGORAs, High Priest of Jove in Metapontum. 3. Mıro, an Athlete of GE disciple of Pythagoras. 4. Chorus of Maidens. 5. Chorus of Young Men. SCENE.—Before the Temple of the Lacinian Hera, on the coast of the Hadriatic, a few miles north of Crotona. The body of the stage is occupied by groups of priests and their attendants, with sacrificial implements; and a band of matrons. In the foreground a chorus of maidens; behind, a chorus of young men. CHORUS OF MAIDENS. [Advancing, and forming themselves into a square, rank and file, in the front of the stage.) STROPHE. Fell was the force of Titan times, When Kronos swayed the world with awe ; Ere Jove lent to the spheral chimes The sweet accords of ordered law. Red Heaven on reeking Earth made war, And hot fire strove with hissing water ; And life was discord, din, and jar, Of monstrous births that throve on slaughter.

But when the lawless troop was bound ’Neath sulphurous Ætna’s throne sublime, A kindlier dam the Father found To nurse the hopeful birth of Time. The ancient rule of Force and Fraud He scorned, and choosing for his mate Wise-counselling Metis, overawed The strife that rent Earth’s crude estate. ANTISTROPHE, Then to make fair reform more fair, A babe, with glory on its face, The mighty mother Rhea bare, Stamped by the Fates for queenly place. And gave it to the shining Hours, With fostering care to tend it well, And to the primal watery Powers Conveyed it, safe from harm to dwell, In ancient Ocean’s sparry dome, - Laved by the stream of sleepless waters, Where hoary Tethys keeps her home With troops of twinkling-footed daughters. And there to maiden grace she grew, And there the fount beheld with awe Whence men, and all the Olympian crew, Their sacred gencration draw.

EPoDE. A woman now she stood, a wonder For stately tread, and blooming pride, And the strong launcher of the Thunder Claimed great-eyed Hera for his bride. Where Thornax on the Argive billow Looks down, and soft the cuckoo calls, There the Fates spread the bridal pillow That thrilled with hope the Olympian halls. And every god brought gifts of beauty, To her that slept great Jove beside, And ancient Earth did loyal duty With golden apples for the bride. And the soft couch was curtained grandly With clouds distilling nectarous dew, And child-eyed flowers looked forth more blandly, And the green blade more greenly grew, When Jove knew Hera’s love; and sweetly ; The Muses sound blithe Hymen’s hymn While round the hill of cuckoos featly In tuneful dance the Graces swim. And thus new seeds of strength were sown For Him that wields the flashing levin; Now firmly stablished stood his throne, And a new law from Fate was given,

With bliss in store, That freed from bonds of force and fraud, By planful wisdom overawed, All men should crook the loyal knee, Thou thunder-belted king, to thee, And great-eyed Hera, Queen of heaven For evermore. [Diagoras advances.| DIAGORAS. "T was well enacted. I have seldom seen A seemlier pomp, and worthier of the gods; And for the hymn, our Metapontine bard At the last great Diasia, for an ode As like to this as tin to silver, reaped A golden talent. Our light temple bards Will string a medley of Pelasgian myths, That have no more coherence than a heap Of coloured pebbles, spread out by the storm Upon a windward shore, and with big mouth Baptize it poetry! Poets should be wise, Else with long arms they perch their gods on high For every fool to scoff at. These loose tales Some day will eat the heart from all respect, And leave our holiest shrines like painted toys For girls to play with. But who comes? Ho, Milo! [Enter Milo.) Hail king of wrestlers! on well-omened day Well-omened meeting! tis some moons since last

We met at Pisa, when the people hailed thee Live Hercules, for that your shoulders bore The heifer through the ring, which then for dinner You did digest entire ! Mino. A god-like meal! I am right glad to see thee. Never yet Have I beheld Lacinian Hera’s feast So well appointed. DIAGORAS. ’T was a four-square work : All parts did aptly fit, as to a ship Well-corded tackle when it takes the breeze. Mio. The praise is hers, the wise Theano, our New priestess, a disciple of Pythagoras. DIAGORAS. Pythagoras? surely I have known that name, But not in western seas. Mito. He sojourns here Some twelve moons only. DIAGORAS. ? Travelled whence Mito. From Samos.

DIAGORAS. I now remember; once I heard the name At Heliopolis from a learned priest, Who said he was a subtle-thoughted man, And for all sleight of mathematic lore Named with the first on Nile. Mito. I marvel not ; He says that mathematic is the porch Through which our sense-bound groping intellect Into the temple of pure reason passes, Where sun-bright gods are throned. ’Tis strange to see How he will sit, and look, and brood, and think His soul out of itself into a square, Or circle, or triangle. In my school A young athlete once found him with fixed gaze Bent o’er the dust, where he had traced a web Of inter-crossing figures; there he sat, Motionless as a sphynx in Memphian sands, Or Niobe on Sipylus; when, behold! Even as a flash from thunder-pregnant cloud, Sudden he starts, and like an uncaged bird That flaps free wings, and shrills with ecstasy, He cried—stenza—I have found it! DIAGORAS. Well, What did he find?

Mito. 9 \ J u I know not, nor have wit For such strange ken. Some quaint equality Of squares with squares, built on contrarious sides Of a right-angled triangle; but he said To me one day that by this measure he Would gauge deep hell, and take the girth of heaven. DIAGORAS. These mathematic men have thoughts that march From sphere to sphere, and measure out the blue Of infinite space like roods of garden ground, And talk of suns and stars, as they were lights From reef to reef in some well-sounded sea; But say, how do Crotona’s sons affect The Samian sage? Mito. As tides affect the moon, Gay flowers the sun, or fish the wavy pool; They hold him of their very blood, who changed— For that he knew our nobler nature—soft Silk-vested Lydia—we interpret thus— For our plain Doric use and hardiment Of manly breeding. ‘There be evil women Who kill with glances ; but this godlike man Bears blessing in his look, and all who see Drink gladness. Like the strength of some blue mount Swathed in the smiles of bright-eyed spring, he stands,

Reaping both love and worship. Old and young By cheerful magic of wise words he draws, As Orpheus drew the beasts: nay, even women He rings about him, eloquent to preach Philosophy from spindles : everywhere Love, awed by wonder, like a faithful page, Follows his favoured footing where he goes. DIAGORAS. Who were his parents? Miro. Thereby hangs a doubt. Some say his sire was of Tyrrhenian stock, To Lemnos first, and thence to Samos driven ; Some vaunt him fathered by Apollo; some Deem him Apollo’s self; and some declare He is nor man nor god, but god and man, Aptly confounded for our double need ; God for the strength that our ambition claims, Man for the pity that our frailty craves : Howbeit the air is rife with buzzing bruits Of marvel since he came, so vouched that he Must smother hearing who would bar belief. "Tis voiced abroad that when he passed the stream That flows by Sybaris, the floods did lift Their crests with—Zai?, Pythagoras! And some Do swear that on the selfsame day and hour At Metapontum and Crotona, he Was seen, two selves, as men report twin suns Sometimes to sail the welkin. All believe

He hath a golden thigh; and many tales Are told of his mysterious communings With Abaris, an Hyperborean priest, Who from the frosted Caucasus to Greece Posted through air upon a golden arrow. The wild barbarian and the savage beast His mild word tames. An unkempt Getan youth, Zamolxis hight, born in a bearskin coat, He took and taught, and sent with wisdom’s claim To smooth the rude rough-mannered shaggy kerns That roam on Ister’s banks. Nay, even they tell, A Daunian bear, caught in a hut, he tamed, Fed it with cakes and acorns, and adjured To lick sweet blood no more. But most they praise How, when he preached in the Trincacrian land, Of righteousness and temperance and truth, The blood-daubed tyrant of Centauripi, Pricked in his heart, and plucking out his lusts, Flung down his sceptre, and his broad domain Gave free to public use. DIAGORAS. Tis wondrous strange ! Full surely he is wise above the mark Of wisest men, and by some mystic bond Holds subject Nature tutored to his will. But how stands he affected to the gods? Mito. As sons to sires whom sires delight to own. There is no Greek from Padus to Pachynus

More strict in all religious exercise That sacred right or use of country claims. DIAGORAS. I’m very glad ont; for ’tis sad, but true, These wise men are not always wise to know The gods, true wisdom’s root. All Italy tells How Pherecydes mocked the Olympian Powers, Boasting, albeit no altar ever knew Or cake from him, or savoury thigh, his life Flowed in a stream of fair prosperity, As smooth as theirs who vowed their hecatombs ; For which bold blasphemy the Delian god Scourged him with loathsome foul disease, that all His festering flesh with live corruption swarmed, And crept into putrescence. Mito. "Tis a tale Far voiced through all the isles ; but Pherecydes, Pythagoras says, was a god-fearing man. DIAGORAS. Grant it be so! but where the rings are spread, A stone fell in the water; rumour swells In multiplied additions as it rolls, In circles ever larger with more lies, But not from nothing. Mito. Rumour hath not yet dared To fling a shade athwart the pious fame

Of pure Pythagoras, who from fount divine All truth and goodness draws ; whose virgin soul Such breath of chastest reverence breathes, that not, Like others, in light-thoughted talk he names The names of gods ; but with well pondered phrase, In solemn protestation only, swears ; A word, he says, is short and quick, but works A long result ; therefore look well to words, And ever swear with prayer upon your lips. DIAGORAS. "Tis a most holy man; hath he then many Disciples in Crotona? Mio. They are counted Now not by tens or hundreds; but not all Are sworn in bonds of secret brotherhood. DIAGORAS. What? brotherhoods? and sworn? at Metapontum Our archons with a wary eye will watch Such secret gatherings, where, as in a nest, Ill-will is fostered, discontent enhanced, Wild plans of crude ambition hatched, and schemes Of deep-designing counsel laid, that breed A state within a state. Mito. Of this you need Fear nothing from Pythagoras ; our guilds

Are peaceful, loyal, reverent, and pure From fretful taint of sour democracy. DIAGORAS. What is their scope, their rule, their discipline? Mito. "Tis simply said: He is the supreme head, And chooses whom he tries, and tries by test Of eye, that in the outward feature reads The inner soul. He hath a wondrous gift To know a true man by the brotherhood Of truth, which breathes in all who love the truth ; And having proved their will, capacity, Courage, and single aim, he leads them through The fruitful silence of a five years’ school Of pondered preparation, for a life Of reasoned usefulness, remote from strife Of hot ambition, and the hunt for gold; And having trained their minds by thought, their wills By wise subjection to superior will, He makes them grow in course of kindly acts Like very brothers, owning him the head Of their large family. With their common goods They help each other; and what human woe May cry for help, needs but the name of man To stir the eager promptings of their heart, And arm their hand with liberal grace to reach Each poor unfriended sufferer, who receives Unhired the loyal service of their love.

DIAGORAS. How many be there of this conclave sworn Here in Crotona? Miro. Some three hundred ; but Four years of their probation still remain. DIAGORAS. Are women of them ? Miro. Certes; for he says, Use not a suppliant or a woman harshly, Both come from Jove, and wisdom hath no sex. DIAGORAS. He speaketh well. In Athens men do use Women to breed their brats, and spread their boards, The slaves, and not the fellows, of their lords. Mito. Our Samian hath a just and gentle soul That hates all masterdom, usurped beyond The use of nature and the need of life; Not women only,—inarticulate brutes, And the mute denizens of the brackish pools, Have claimed his care. I guess your worship knows The famous marketing he made last week With the fishermen at Sybaris?

DIAGORAS. In faith not I. I have been some weeks absent at the feast Of Atabyrian Jove in Agrigentum ; And as a waxen tablet, smooth, unscratched, My mind lies blank to write your tale upon. Mito. Well, thus it was. He sauntered on the beach This side of Sybaris, where some fishermen With sweatful strain were pulling in their nets, And says to them,— A goodly draught ye draw, Brave fellows, here; and in my mind I know The exact tale that your stout net involves.” They laughed, and said,—“ Ha! if you are a wizard, And prove your vaunt, we'll do what thing you bid Within our human reach.” The net was drawn, And all the fish were counted on the beach ; Ten score and ten, precise, as he foretold. Then as they marvelling stood, he bade them fling The finny gaspers back into the brine Wholesale ; which, when they did, each: bright-scaled thing Paddled alert into the wrinkled pool, No whit the worse ; whereat the sage took forth Two golden Darics from his belt, and said, “Here's payment for your draught: I well have gained My wager, and the fishes gain their lives.” Wherewith he left them; and the story ran

Through all Crotona, as from glen to glen The travelling thunder rolls. DIAGORAS. Does this tale Deserve our sober credence? Mio. Who were there Can answer that ; myself can only say He hath a marvellous gift of casting count, That overleaps the function of our wit By Nature’s common grant ; and, for his love To fish and every breathing form that moves It is a prime point in his discipline To touch the life of things with holy fear, Which some do hold so nicely that they brook No flesh for food, and do repair their bloods With innocent herbs, sweet milk, and barley cakes. DIAGORAS. In Egypt there are sacred beasts that live More honoured than the king ; and I have heard On Ganga’s banks the twice-born priests withdraw Their lips from blood, for subtle reasons laid In their theology. Mito. I have heard it said That in his youth he travelled far beyond High-cedared Lebanon, and the pastoral bounds

Of the men-hating Hebrews, to the banks Of Indus and Hydaspes, gathering there Deep-thoughted dogmas, about march of souls Through masks of changeful bodies. Dracoras. Even so ; And ’tis most likely that he spares the brutes, Fearing to harm some soul of kindred man That walks in bestial tenement encased, For castigation of some bestial sin That shamed his human form, Miro. ’Tis very like; And in the common parley of the town Himself hath memory of precedent states In which he walked the earth: some say he was Euphorbus, son of Panthôus, whose sharp spear Wounded Patroclus on red Ilium’s plain; Since when through various shapes of men he passed By steps of just ascension, till he scaled The top of virtue, and now lives a sage. But these are matters which his wisdom shuns To fling upon the glass of common minds, Prone still to mar the image they reflect; All things to all men only fools will tell, Truth profits none but those who use it well; So I have heard him oft.

DIAGORAS. What man is that With long white robe, and white-dependent beard, Who with serene and sober gravity Winds round the rock? Miro. Where mean you? DIAGORAS. Here below. Miro. It is himself, DIAGORAS. What self?—Pythagoras ? Miro. Most surely: up the swallow rock he climbs, And will be here anon. DIAGORAS. He comes this way. Mito. Jove speed the chance ! now bring your questioning Before the oracle ; henceforth I am dumb. [Enter Pythagoras from below.) PYTHAGORAS. How art thou, Milo? Would I were as strong In all the strength that makes a man a man As Milo is in muscle !

Miro. Were I as strong In all the strength that makes a wise man wise As now to sinewy grasp and litheness bred, Td be more wise than wise Pythagoras. PYTHAGORAS. Jove give you grace for many years to live The Hercules of Crotona, more to earth Than he in heaven to heaven! but who's your friend ? Miro. A worthy man, high honoured priest of Jove, From Metapontum come to grace the feast Of the Lacinian Hera, sister spouse To the great god he serves. PYTHAGORAS. Hail, honoured sir ! D1acoras. . Mine eyes are blest to-day, beholding what, From the vague witness of the ear, I knew At priestly Memphis. PYTHACORAS. Wert thou in Egypt? DIAGORAS. The strong desire of wisdom stayed me there Two years in converse with the learned priests.

Would that all Greeks were with your wisdom wise To learn before they teach! we are the growth Of yesterday, and in our green conceit Deem that, unfathered by an older race, We from our native Argive glebe upshot And blossomed into virtue from a seed, Self-sown, sel£watered! but where sacred Nile Pours his salubrious flood through fields that heave With rich vivific slime, old Wisdom sits On hoary throne, and peers serenely great Above us pigmies, as a glittering-crowned Starneighbouring peak o’erlooks the undulant downs That edge the coast with greenness. To be wise Greece first should know her ignorance. DIAGORAS. “ We Greeks Are always children ;” so the high priest said To me at Heliopolis; and the word Came like a goad, and like a nail remains. PYTHAGORAS. No word is worth that not in goadwise comes And pricks to action; men there be that make Parade of fluency, and deftly play With points of speech as jugglers toss their balls ; A tinkling crew, from whose light-squandered wit No seed of virtue grows.

DIAGORAS. When I was young Such talkers tickled me; then all my soul Lodged in mine ear, and facile fancy fed On twinkling tropes: now, wary-wise, I learn From no man who makes market of his wit, But from the tree that in ripe season drops The fruit of long years of unvaunted growth I gather wisdom ; and in chief from thee, Whose school of virtue is Crotona’s crown, Would gladly glean what truth thy ken may deem Meet for my learning. PYTHAGORAS. We have a sentence famous in our school — “ IVear not the types of gods upon your ring.” DIAGORAS. A pictured parable, and meaning ? PYTHAGORAS. This, Show not to all men always all the things Most worth the showing. DIAGORAS. And the application ? This simply—to the vulgar class with whom Raw sense usurps ripe reason’s seat we teach

Nothing; but on the unfilmèd eye we pour Intelligential light; and to Jove's priest, Who from the supreme wisdom wisdom draws, Unsworn, unpledged, Pythagoras may unveil The golden best of all Pythagoras knows. DIAGORAS. Jove make me worthy of your trust! even now I talked with Milo of your doctrine pure And discipline severe, and inly long From your own lips to imbibe the sage discourse, As he who scents a fragrant fruit desires To sip its sweetness. PYTHAGORAS. What I can I will Give to your questioning; but I make no boast Of novel dogmas; I Im never forged Private conceits, nor hugged, for they were mine, The pretty pets, the bantlings of my brain. Old truth I preach, from sempiternal source Of primal inspiration, owned by men When men lived near the gods; if I am wise, I know whence wisdom flows; the biggest stream Is but the small fed by the small, and all By Jove’s pure wells were fathered in the sky. DIAGORAS. The wise man of Miletus thus declared The FIRST OF THINGS IS WATER ; I would know If he spake well in this.

Well: but before His first of causes a diviner first Gave law to wet and dry, and hot and cold. DIAGORAS. What first was that ? PYTHAGORAS. NUMBER. DIAGORAS. How mean you this? PYTHAGORAS. Hear, and digest: this single word unlocks The riddle of the world. The world is order ; Order is numbered multitude, marshalled well In calculated spaces. See this flower That spreads its starry coronet to the sun, Beautiful, golden, in the dainty trim Of its bright circlet, and the delicate green Embracement of the cup that bears the crown ; Each part is numbered, every leaflet cut With living arithmetic, nice and true, That shames all skill of craftsman. Count the parts. DIAGORAS. Five golden segments in the crown, and ten Green leaflets in the cup, five large, five small, With cunning alternation finely set.

Count now the stamens that like satellites Keep circular guard around the central germ. Dracoras. Tve told them twice: I think they number ten. PyTHAGORAS. So right; and thus the number of the plant Is ten, what else were lawless huddlement, Chaotic, rude, unknown, unknowable ; But by the sacred limit of the ten Now from the waste infinitude redeemed Into chaste order’s ranks, and disciplined Into the file of beauty. Mito. I see this now For the first time; what published fools we are, Looking with open eyes on miracles From day to day—beneath—above—around, And seeing—nothing! PYTHAGORAS. If but Athena’s grace Would salve our eyes, we'd see a host of gods In every tumult working to a plan. DIAGORAS. T’ve heard it said that ’neath the stony ribs Of inorganic rocks there dwells a power

That moulds the obdurate atoms of the flint Into fine angles, measured most exact By mathematic rule. PYTHAGORAS. And I have walked In lands where hills in measured platforms rose Tier upon tier, and every tier was built Ofjointed blocks that fitted each to each With nice compagination, like the bars Welded in Vulcan’s stithy; thou canst find Nowhere in Nature where not number reigns. DIAGORAS. When the birds sing in spring, and zephyrs shake The leafy grove, the rush of warbled sounds That thrills the bosom of the fragrant air With the wild gladness of new procreant life, ' Seems a most sweet confusion. PYTHAGORAS. Least of all In sounds confusion reigns; and melody, Without nice number fitting note to note, Would shriek like tempest in the tortured ear, And rend all hearing with discordant bray. DIAGORAS. How know you this? What man that measures fields With chain and rod and mathematic law, Can tell the inches of the cuckoo’s note?

The cuckoo's note is a most cunning lute, And lutes have numbered strings, and oaten pipes Have numbered stops. Come thou to me to-morrow In the cool plane-tree walk behind the school, And I will show thee how the selfsame string With nicely varied tension gently glides From wave to wave concordant, though the whole Sweet sequence of brave harmonies that wake The chambered ear to rapture; break the law Of numbered intervals that links the chain Of just vibrations, and the clashing sounds With grating din will saw the shrinking ear Of him that heard in rooted ecstasy, Till he pray Jove for deafness ! DraGoras. Tis most strange ! But certes some things be that scorn control And wanton in confusion. Who hath measured The cloud, the storm-wind, and the waterfall? PYTHAGORAS. God measures all things; is himself the measure Of all that is, hath been, or yet may be. The headlong waterfall that o’er the cliff Flings its full-breasted force, and fiercely smites The grey rocks with its sweeping scourge, and in ‘The deep brown granite cauldron boils below, With sleepless whirling eddies, and white foam Of bubbles bursting still, and still to burst—

This water hath a number, every drop Atom to atom joined by certain law, Nice as the notes of melody adjured From strings by harper’s magic. Take that crust Of curled black lichen creeping o’er the face Of the red rock; thou see’st no order there; But if some ail might point thine eye more keen To see what now its grosser view ignores, And thou mightst dive into its heart, and probe The pulsing alleys of its tissued life, Then wouldst thou find with fine ecstatic ken A mustered and a marshalled beauty there, As perfect as the ordered strategy Of that proud Memphian conqueror who mapped The world with battle-fields, and played with lives As children play with bowls, and made all lands The chess-board of his vast imperial scheme. His movements, as they hurried to and fro Freighted with death, seemed lawless as the rush Of savage beasts unkennelled ; but full well He knew the portioned number of his host ; And with one glance from him, they from afar Gathered the sundered looseness of their ranks, And with concentric curious-counted speed Bore on the station marked for doom, and burst In calculated thunder. Dost thou see This small brown hillock? DIAGORAS. Yes; it is an ant-hill.

Mito. How deftly they drive on, and whirl about, Some here, some there, o’er one another’s heads! And some creep into holes, and some creep out, And some with straws are galloping, and some With little sticks are hobbling, and some push A small white roll upon their tiny snouts ; Incalculable maze! I marvel much If evermore they make this motley stir; Their reeling makes me dizzy, as the light Far shimmering o’er the million-pointed wave Palsies the eye. PYTHAGORAS. The palsied eye proclaims His own defect ; and weak nerves are confounded Where no confusion is. DIAGORAS. Is there none here? PYTHAGORAS. More order than in your weak brain or mine, Or any brain that harbours human thoughts. Not less than Memphian pontiffs, nicely trained To measure the long-centuried march of stars, Instinct with mathematic skill from Jove, These puny craftsmen know what number means. DIAGORAS. Have they a plan? FARSA d by Microsc

Doubt not; as much as he Who piled the numbered legions of the bricks Into the pyramids that sentinel The seven-mouth’d Nile. DIAGORAS. ’Tis wondrous strange. PYTHAGORAS. Far stranger, if thou knew The hot heart of that sphered metropolis, Whereof thou now but seest the outer ports, And a few hundred peaceful citizens By our ungracious intrusion frayed. Not Babylon the mighty, nor the pomp Of hundred-gated, many-templed Thebes, Hath streets more orderly. Every lane, I wot, Is numbered here, and every crossway swept. This busy people, as their skill may be, Hath each his portioned task; some delve and burrow, And carve huge tunnels where a passage fails, And span the void with arches, and some scoop A drain for water, whose untimely swell Might flood the colony; some are sent abroad To cater stores for winter; and some pile The newly plundered grain. Some run, some wait, Some sweat and serve, some hold a high command, But each a needful work fulfils, and all By mystic number’s harmony combine The swarming units to a jointed whole. Microsoft @

Mito. And in my garden I have marked the bees, Most cunning engineers, and ordered well. PYTHAGORAS. All things are full of cunning; even fools Have wisdom for their need; and multitude By number grouped, and by discretion used Is power. Hold thou this faith with grapplinghooks, All things in the vast world are done by law, And law is number, and all numbers are The thoughts of gods that from deep counsel take Significant masks to play their pictured parts Upon the stage of being. Every grain Of the ribb’d sand is numbered, every whiff Of every breeze, all fleecy mists that fleck The blue concave, all bubbles of the brine, All flies that swarm from hot-fermenting beds In sweltering summer, every seed that floats On plumy vans into the bosomed earth; All sounds of earth and sky, the chirp of birds, The roar of lions, and the lisp of babes, The pealing thunder, and the tinkling rill, The trumpet-tongued exploits of dinful war, And the low syllabled breath of fearful prayer, God speaks their mystic number, and they are. DIAGORAS. At Heliopolis an aged priest, White with the ripe repose of well-spent years,

Oft times at set of sun discoursed to me Of special virtue in the ordered tale Of every number, and above the rest With eloquent loving preference he praised The sacred trine. PYTHAGORAS. Wisely the wise man spake. There is no number of rare quality Like THREE ; it is the strong and plastic bond That bridges two extremes, and nicely shapes From three a unity, a whole that meets The claim of reason and the plan of Jove. For Jove is one; and, when two stand apart Without a third to link them, unity Is lost, and God divided from Himself. Thus earth and fire, the heavy and the light, Are bound together by the graded kinds Of air and water; as to fire the air, So to the air the water; and as air To water, so is water to gross earth ; By just degrees of apt proportion tuned threes, And thus by process of well-blended And linked gradations cunningly combined, The sundered many to their primal type Slide kindly back, and the great world is one. Mito. And therefore three libations at a feast Give perfect thanks ; and in wise Homer’s song By three great deities each hero swears, Dark-clouded Jove, Athena, and Apollo.

DIAGORAS. Oft times in pictured Memphian fanes I saw Three seated gods one common altar grace ; And the priest said an old thrice-sacred law Forbade their sundering. PyTHAGORAS. Something more than law, Nature and the necessity of things Demand the three. On Ganga’s sacred banks The gymnosophists to a triform Gop Pray wisely. Three in one, and one in Three, Strong to create, to save, and to destroy Eternal Trine of functions that must be, While the Unlimited and Absolute walks Sel£bounded into Finitude. They are fools Who deem that aught in holy creed revered Stands by a law which he who made can mar ; Jove may not will to do what if he willed He were not Jove; a trinity in God Egypt and Greece, and Ganga’s sons adore By the essential virtue of the Trine ; Even as in man, in whom a god doth dwell, Between the naked Thought and harnessed Deed, To bridge the gap the spoken Word appears, And through the word full-panoplied the Thought Goes conquering forth in stable act complete; And thought and deed by word are unified, Being three into one energizing whole, A trinity in unity of powers That makes a man a man, the world a world.

DIAGORAS. Thou hast unveiled my sight; and now I see Where I saw nought, the office of the THREE; "And I remember Asclepiades The wise old leech in Metapontum, skilled In all the virtues of all herbs that grow, Said that Demeter gives the nurturing wheat Fruited from flowers whose number is the three. PYTHAGORAS. That any child may learn who in the spring Looks in the bloom that shoots out from the sheath By summer's heat unhardened. There you count Three threads erect, ‘that stand with yellow caps Like sentinels around the chambered cell, Where swells the foodful grain. DIAGORAS. How wonderful ! + PYTHAGORAS. All things are wonderful; who wonders not, Hath eyes and sees not; wonder is the key Of knowledge and of worship to the wise; And if there be who with unloving hands Push the rich loveliness of things aside, Nor bend the knee before the shaping Power That works in blazing star, and breathing dust, Poor frosty souls ! if I could strain cold ice To my warm bosom, I could live with them In bonds of love; but let them live alone,

Knowing that nought is worthy to be known, Nourished by heartless sneers and hollow jests And worshipping—if worship be for them— Their little selves ! Dracoras. Would God that all Our priests in Metapontum with like phrase, Seasoned their chanted liturgies; but now They turn the crazy mill-wheel of old rites | With plashing driblets, and rehearse their store Of monstered legends to a gaping throng, Which makes the prudent scoff; and much I fear, Lest with the rank offence of sleepy prayers And fables moulded when the baby-world Lay cradled in light dreams, fair Greece be turned From faith, and live divorced from holy fear That links men with the gods. Ourselves have taught The babbling sophist to bemock the gods ; Ourselves, who shame divinity with tales That make chaste maidens blush ; and now our youth Are trained to slight our worship, and to serve The gods with sham lip-mumbled prayers, of which The heart knows nothing. Oft times I have wept With tears that no man sees, and I make moans With moans that no man hears, when I revolve, How, if this rank-sown sceptic seed shall shoot To natural topping, our fair host of gods That makes a world a garden good for men, Well watered and well sunned, shall, by the frost

Of pert-mouthed witlings blasted, shrink and droop, And blacken into dust, trod under foot Of aweless men, who in the sun delight To spy black spots, and make most holy things A theme for laughter, and a text for sneers. Of powers they talk, and forces, vortices, Figures, and spaces, fulness and a void, Attractions and repulsions, atoms wed Blindly to atoms, and all blindly borne Through blank infinitude with fortuitous reel, Till with a random bump they meet, and from Their chaos strike out order; this they teach, And this they vend for wisdom ; but of Jove They speak not, by whose counsel all things stand, Dread thunder-launching lord ; nor of his spouse, The great-eyed Hera, matronly and proud ; Nor of Apollo with his blazing darts Chasing god-hated darkness from the sky; Nor of the flashing-eyed Athena, wise To purchase peace by prompt display of war. All this must perish, if dear Greece shall stint Her lovely faith, and barrenly increase Mere itch of knowledge, leaving to lean eyes, For the bright smile that warms the face o’ the world, A bald, disgodded, lightless, loveless grey! PYTHAGORAS. Fear not; the faith that in the hearts of men Lives now shall live for ever. ‘The Jove that reigns To-day, eternal as the stable skies

Whose power he wields, sits on unshaken throne. All things are full of change; but all the change Is the new mask of him that changeth never; If Zeus might cease to reign, another name Shall launch the thunderbolt and wheel the spheres ; Greek or Barbarian, Jove shall still be Jove, Voiced with Hellenic or Phoenician breath, His fateful essence with impartial glance Shoots through the shifting shibboleths of creeds With multiform acknowledgment, yet one Power, Who by the heart, not by the tongue, discerns His worshippers; names are but minted signs For needful currency, the thing behind By thousand symbols symbolled is but one. Zeus recks not what we call him, how men may With hoar traditional pomp of customed style, Parade him for their reverence ; he is pleased With the best form that suits each suppliant’s need, And owns alike the wise man’s reasoned hymn, And the rude savage with his mumbled charm And neck-strung amulet. And for the tales That bards with fancy’s airy tissue weave, When men have ceased to hear them and believe, Jove is well pleased that Time shall ring their knell. DIAGORAS. Grant it be so: yet must I fear the hand That plucks a flower from a well-woven wreath ; A drunken Hercules may pull down a house That long shall wait the master-builder’s craft To set its shaken joints. Jove sits secure

In heaven, you say; ’tis well; meanwhile below We rock on seas of doubt, and see old thrones Start from their roots, by sharp earth-shaking throes Of fearful change. And if the grey report Of ancient piety shield our shrines from touch Of shameless force, and awful reverence shun To rend the sacred vest that robes a god, Not shielded by such fear, our archons sit On the high bench of state. I long have marked How in this land the bonds of old respect Are snapt; and now a green unseasoned brood, Blown with the bubbling yeast of yesterday, And spreading broad their fans of mushroom wealth, Spurn the conditions of their birth, and stretch Unlicensed hands to snatch the ancestral mace From ancient honour’s gripe. Fair order thus Is marred in States; old dignity departs; The due gradations of just rank and place Are levelled; no man owes respect to man ; And each man seizes what he knows to hold By right of might and sleight of juggling phrase; For all are free they say, and equal all, And one as good as t’other. PYTHAGORAS. I have known Enough of men and their unreasoned ways To deem your fears not causeless. Liberty Is a strong wine all men would gladly quaff, But few quaff wisely; ’tis a gallant ship, That with full-bellied sail spread to the breeze,

Needs weightier ballast and a wiser helm. Men are like school-boys wishing to be free From masters whom, to learn, they must obey ; The boys are stupid, foolish, what you will, And still will wish the thing that hurts them still; But this remember, if the master be False to his function, and unlearned to spell, No one will blame the boys if they rebel. Take hence your lesson; you by old descent The natural heads and helmsmen of the State Are lawful masters of the school, and sit On thrones of order; if you order well Your States are happy, and your seats are sure; Men hate control; but for the fear of worse They live content when they are well controlled. The reins are yours ; and, if some colt shall kick, Use well the lash, and Jove will help the strong; But if you live self-pleasers, being perched On thrones of honour for the general weal, And use the people but as sheep to shear That you may sit in woolly coats, while they Stand shivering in the blast, then righteous Jove Will send twin scourges to chastise your sins, The democrat and despot, this of that The lawful offspring, both of liberty The natural growth, where pampered privilege Rules for itself, and to its work untrue, Neglects the many and corrupts the few. DIAGORAS. Wisely you speak: ourselves the vipers breed That bite us; insolence in the few begets Microsoft

Hate in the many ; hatred breeds revolt ; Revolt, where all are free to rise and rule, Breeds anarchy, whose wild chaotic reign Calls in the despot with strong will to keep Sharp knives from maddened hands; and thus we reel From vassalage to vassalage, through fits Of drunken freedom,—glorious for an hour! PYTHAGORAS. We are but children practising to walk, Still, stumbling, still to tempt our feet again. The gods are patient; time is long; and change Treads on the steps of change, till men shall learn From mighty heads discrowned and trampled thrones, That Wisdom only reigns by right divine, And where the wise rule, and the fools obey Not force, but aptly-balanced forces sway; And for this end in our sworn brotherhood We work here in Crotona, training each, By course of wise obedience disciplined, To know his betters, and to own their rule; Thus each for each, and all for all are trained, As in the high-wrought quaintly builded ode Note answers note, and verse to verse responds. Mito. Our Greekish ears, I fear, shall sooner hear The spheral chimes than win this harmony From the harsh bray of democratic brawls.

Milo, all growth is slow; but Jove hath made The blustering March to pledge the blooming May ; The seasons come ; we cannot spur their coming. And if the Greeks, in wisdom’s work the first, Should lag in polity behind the march Of some barbarian tanling, cradled now Behind the Oscan hills, ’tis but a page In the great lesson-book of Time,—a word \ The stammering school-boy cannot spell to-day, But some day will, when moons that grow from moons Bring sweet from sour, and ripeness from the crude. The gods give leash enough for human fools To follow fools, and loss to breed more loss, Till men by blunder upon blunder piled Shall choose to cease from faith in multitudes, Who, weighing wisdom by their blustering breaths, Fling in the air their smutty caps, and cry Huzza, to every flatterer! The crude world Takes centuries to learn one mellow truth. DIAGORAS. And I in this short hour have learned enough To last me for a life. What sound was that? Mito. It is the chorus of young men which rounds This festive day with melody. Stand we aside,

While they shall mass their files. You will admire Theano’s skill, as you admired before; The youths were trained by her; the verses drew Their numbers from her fine harmonious soul, The chorus of Young Men advances on the platform before the temple, and disposing themselves as in the opening chorus of Maidens, sing as follows :— STROPHE, When man first rose from teeming ground A rude unfinished thing was he, And looked with blank amaze around On the strange sky, and land, and sea. Whether from Egypt’s genial mud When earth was young he crawled to view, Or Argive Inachus’ sacred flood The big untutored baby knew. Naked he stood; to veil lus shame No curious-tissued rag he wore ; No edged tool he knew to frame, Or sheltering roof, or barring door. But in the self-built cavern rude His lazy length on stony bed He stretched supine, and all his food Was mountain berries black and red. The horn’d and talon’d brood he feared, The nightly wolves that howl and roam

And when the snake his crest upreared, He slunk into his craven home. A helpless, shiftless, aimless thing, With weak, unpractised, blundering brain ; In woods he owned the lion king, And the wild bull upon the plain. ANTISTROPHE. But when his brain to firmness grew, And Thought his manly stature gained, The wildered world its master knew, Force bowed the neck, and Reason reigned. The sturdy ox, the snorting steed, The light-heeled, the slow-gaited brute He caught, and trained to serve his need With lustier loins or fleeter foot. The pointed flint he made his tool, His sceptre was the bleachéd bone ; The splintered oak, the twisted wool, The cleavèd slate his service own. From sifted sand the twinkling ore He drew; with nicely sundering sleight Black iron’s adamantine store He charmed from stone to arm his might. And where he came with skilful plan And reason’s mild subduing law,

The dwindled forest fled from man, The waste a blooming garden saw. And tents with polished poles were reared, And pillared domes, and vaulted aisles, And porch and pictured wall appeared, And towers, and proud palatial piles, . EPODE, And kings with sceptred honour ruled ; And hostile clans in brawling bred, By common dangers harshly schooled Took law from one imperial head, But most to help the noblest need Of human thought, Religion grew, With wingèd hymn, and awful creed, And myth of various woven hue. And prophets spake, and oracles Gave fateful note of coming harm, And sacred rites and holy spells Smoothed the guilt-stricken soul’s alarm. And saintly sage and thoughtful seer On meditation’s brooding wings Sublimely borne, with vision clear Pierced through the sensuous veil of things. And through creation’s starry girth With reverent joy and wonder saw

Of things in heaven, and things on earth The mystic number and the Law. And heard with raptured ear the chime Of spheres on spheres that wheel for ever, The swell and fall of shoreless Time, The roll of Life’s exhaustless river. And taught man’s creeping soul to rise From stony glebe and dusty sod, And track with ever new surprise a god. The flaming footsteps of Such strength by fate’s far-stretching plan To wise deep-thoughted man was given By Jove, who rules the Olympian clan And great-eyed Hera, queen of heaven. PYTHAGORAS. Good sirs, adieu ! these vesper notes shall ring My lullaby to-night. To-morrow morn Jove give us happy meeting, when the great Procession crowns the feast ! Miro. Farewell, good master ! DIAGORAS. Jove rain great grace on wise Pythagoras!

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