# Arcas — Poetry character guide

> Arcas in Poetry by Matthew Arnold.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Arcas Faithful

**First appearance:** 0144-merope

## Snapshot

The old, faithful servant who carried the infant Aepytus to safety and now shuttles between mother and son in secret.

## Who they are

Arcas is the channel through whom Merope and her hidden son communicate, an old man whose loyalty has outlasted two kings and one murder. His devotion is also his flaw: he has spent years watching Merope's grief and his own hope wear thin, and the poem's lyric voice — waiting, weeping, foreseeing that love must cool — belongs to a heart like his. He matters because he alone can recognize Aepytus at the crisis, and the recognition he withholds or reveals will decide whether the queen's axe falls on her own blood.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_16_se/characters/arcas
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_16_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_16_se/characters