THESEUS. AETHRA THES. Why weeping, mother? and why veil your eyes In your soft dress? Is it because you hear These cries of sorrow? I too feel this pang. Lift your white head again, and do not weep When sitting by Demeter's solemn hearth. AETH. Alas! THES. These women's troubles do not ask our tears. AETH. Unhappy women! THES. Your are not among them. AETH. Grant me a word to help you and the city. THES. The words that women say are often wise. AETH. The speech I leave unspoken brings me fear. THES. A sorry speech to hide good words from friends. AETH. Speak then I shall, nor later find reproach That I have now kept silence wrongfully. Nor, fearing that a woman's words are idle, Shall I in fear withhold an honest thought. First, son, I bid you look to holy things, Lest from dishonouring the gods you fall: In all else right, in this alone you failed. Next, if we should not rightly give our help To injured men, I should have held my tongue: Now see what honour this will bring to you -- I do not fear to counsel you, my son -- That violent men who try to rob the dead Of funeral rites and their last offices Should to the like constraint be brought by you And stopped from ruining the laws that reign Through Hellas. What unites the towns of men Is this -- that laws are honourably kept. Some one will say that out of cowardice, When you might win a crown of fame for Athens, You feared and stood aside, -- who made light sport Of fighting with the wild and angry boar -- But when you should have stood against the spear-points And helmets, then you proved yourself afraid. My son, for you are mine, do not this thing. You see your country, helpless and reviled, Lift up its glittering eye against all those Revilers? In its sorrows it finds strength. Cities, which work in twilight silently, Have twilit looks, for all their careful plans. These dead men and these weeping women need Your help, my son. Will you not give it them? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A MAN CHILD IS BORN (1839) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE CREATION by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THE SCHOLAR GIPSY by MATTHEW ARNOLD IN HOSPITAL: 28. DISCHARGED by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY TO A SHADE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE PLOUGHMAN by KARLE WILSON BAKER |