Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 167
THE CUP: A TRAGEDY
CONTENTS
Dramatis Personæ
Act I
Scene I
Scene II
Scene III
Act II
Scene I
Dramatis Personæ
GALATIANS.
SYNORIX, an ex-Tetrarch.
SINNATUS, a Tetrarch.
PHŒBE.
CAMMA, wife of Sinnatus, afterwards
Priestess in the Temple of Artemis.
Attendant.
Boy.
Maid.
ROMANS
ANTONIUS, a Roman General
PUBLIUS.
Nobleman.
Messenger.
Act I
Scene I
Distant View of a City of Galatia.
As the curtain rises, Priestesses are heard singing in the Temple. Boy discovered on a pathway among Rocks, picking grapes. A party of Roman Soldiers, guarding a prisoner in chains, come down the pathway and exeunt.
Enter SYNORIX (looking round). Singing ceases.
SYNORIX.
Pine, beech and plane, oak, walnut, apricot,
Vine, cypress, poplar, myrtle, bowering-in
The city where she dwells. She past me here
Three years ago when I was flying from
My Tetrarchy to Rome. I almost touch’d her —
A maiden slowly moving on to music
Among her maidens to this Temple — O Gods
She is my fate — else wherefore has my fate
Brought me again to her own city? — married
Since — married Sinnatus, the Tetrarch here —
But if he be conspirator, Rome will chain,
Or slay him. I may trust to gain her then
When I shall have my tetrarchy restored
By Rome, our mistress, grateful that I show’d her
The weakness and the dissonance of our clans,
And how to crush them easily. Wretched race!
And once I wish’d to scourge them to the bones.
But in this narrow breathing-time of life
Is vengeance for its own sake worth the while,
If once our ends are gain’d? and now this cup —
I never felt such passion for a woman.
[Brings out a cup and scroll from under his cloak.
What have I written to her?
[Reading the scroll.
‘To the admired Camma, wife of Sinnatus, the Tetrarch, one who years ago, himself an adorer of our great goddess, Artemis, beheld you afar off worshipping in her Temple, and loved you for it, sends you this cup rescued from the burning of one of her shrines in a city thro’ which he past with the Roman army: it is the cup we use in our marriages. Receive it from one who cannot at present write himself other than
‘A GALATIAN SERVING BY FORCE IN THE ROMAN LEGION.’
[Turns and looks up to Boy.
Boy, dost thou know the house of Sinnatus?
BOY.
These grapes are for the house of Sinnatus —
Close to the Temple.
SYNORIX.
Yonder?
BOY.
Yes.
SYNORIX (aside).
That I
With all my range of women should yet shun
To meet her face to face at once! My boy,
[Boy comes down rocks to him.
Take thou this letter and this cup to Camma,
The wife of Sinnatus.
BOY.
Going or gone to-day
To hunt with Sinnatus.
SYNORIX.
That matters not.
Take thou this cup and leave it at her doors.
[Gives the cup and scroll to the Boy.
BOY.
I will, my lord.
[Takes his basket of grapes and exit.
Enter ANTONIUS.
ANTONIUS (meeting the Boy as he goes out).
Why, whither runs the boy?
Is that the cup you rescued from the fire?
SYNORIX.
I send it to the wife of Sinnatus,
One half besotted in religious rites.
You come here with your soldiers to enforce
The long-withholden tribute: you suspect
This Sinnatus of playing patriotism,
Which in your sense is treason. You have yet
No proof against him: now this pious cup
Is passport to their house, and open arms
To him who gave it; and once there I warrant
I worm thro’ all their windings.
ANTONIUS.
If you prosper,
Our Senate, wearied of their tetrarchies,
Their quarrels with themselves, their spites at Rome,
Is like enough to cancel them, and throne
One king above them all, who shall be true
To the Roman: and from what I heard in Rome,
This tributary crown may fall to you.
SYNORIX.
The king, the crown! their talk in Rome? is it so?
[ANTONIUS nods.
Well — I shall serve Galatia taking it,
And save her from herself, and be to Rome
More faithful than a Roman.
[Turns and sees CAMMA coming.
Stand aside,
Stand aside; here she comes
[Watching CAMMA as she enters with her Maid.
CAMMA (to Maid).
Where is he, girl?
MAID.
You know the waterfall
That in the summer keeps the mountain side,
But after rain o’erleaps a jutting rock
And shoots three hundred feet.
CAMMA.
The stag is there?
MAID.
Seen in the thicket at the bottom there
But yester-even.
CAMMA.
Good then, we will climb
The mountain opposite and watch the chase.
[They descend the rocks and exeunt.
SYNORIX (watching her). (Aside.)
The bust of Juno and the brows and eyes
Of Venus; face and form unmatchable!
ANTONIUS.
Why do you look at her so lingeringly?
SYNORIX.
To see if years have changed her.
ANTONIUS (sarcastically).
Love her, do you?
SYNORIX.
I envied Sinnatus when he married her.
ANTONIUS.
She knows it? Ha
SYNORIX.
She — no, nor ev’n my face.
ANTONIUS.
Nor Sinnatus either?
SYNORIX.
No, nor Sinnatus.
ANTONIUS.
Hot-blooded! I have heard them say in Rome,
That your own people cast you from their bounds,
For some unprincely violence to a woman,
As Rome did Tarquin.
SYNORIX.
Well, if this were so
I here return like Tarquin — for a crown.
ANTONIUS.
And may be foil’d like
Tarquin, if you follow
Not the dry light of Rome’s straight-going policy,
But the fool-fire of love or lust, which well
May make you lose yourself, may even drown you
In the good regard of Rome.
SYNORIX.
Tut-fear me not;
I ever had my victories among women.
I am most true to Rome.
ANTONIUS (aside).
I hate the man
What filthy tools our Senate works with! Still
I must obey them. (Aloud.) Fare you well. [Going.
SYNORIX.
Farewell!
ANTONIUS (stopping).
A moment! If you track this Sinnatus
In any treason, I give you here an order [Produces a paper.
To seize upon him. Let me sign it.
(Signs it.) The
re
‘Antonius leader of the Roman Legion.’
[Hands the paper to Synorix. Goes up pathway and exit.
SYNORIX.
Woman again! — but I am wiser now.
No rushing on the game — the net, — the net.
[Shouts of ‘Sinnatus! Sinnatus!’ Then horn.
Looking off stage.] He comes, a rough, bluff, simple-looking fellow.
If we may judge the kernel by the husk,
Not one to keep a woman’s fealty when
Assailed by Craft and Love. I’ll join with him
I may reap something from him — come upon her
Again, perhaps, to-day — her. Who are with him?
I see no face that knows me. Shall I risk it?
I am a Roman now, they dare not touch me.
I will.
[Enter SINNATUS, HUNTSMEN and hounds.
Fair Sir, a happy day to you!
You reck but little of the Roman here,
While you can take your pastime in the woods.
SINNATUS.
Ay, ay, why not? What would you with me, man?
SYNORIX.
I am a life-long lover of the chase,
And tho’ a stranger fain would be allow’d
To join the hunt.
SINNATUS.
Your name?
SYNORIX.
Strato, my name.
SINNATUS.
No Roman name?
SYNORIX.
A Greek, my lord; you know
That we Galatians are both Greek and Gaul.
[Shouts and horns in the distant
SINNATUS.
Hillo, the stag! (To SYNORIX.)
What, you are all unfurnish’d?
Give him a bow and arrows — follow — follow.
[Exit, followed by Huntsmen.
SYNORIX.
Slowly but surely — till I see my way.
It is the one step in the dark beyond
Our expectation, that amazes us.
[Distant shouts and horns.
Hillo! Hillo!
[Exit Synorix. Shouts and horns.
Scene II
A Room in the Tetrarch’s House.
Frescoed figures on the walls. Moonlight outside. A couch with cushions on it. A small table with a flagon of wine, cups, plate of grapes, etc., also the cup of Scene I. A chair with drapery on it.
CAMMA enters, and opens curtains of window.
CAMMA.
No Sinnatus yet — and there the rising moon.
[Takes up a cithern and sits on court.
Plays and sings.
Moon on the field and the foam,
Moon on the waste and the wold,
Moon bring him home, bring him home
Safe from the dark and the cold,
Home, sweet moon, bring him home,
Home with the flock to the fold —
Safe from the wolf ——
(Listening.) Is he coming? I thought I heard
A footstep. No not yet. They say that Rome
Sprang from a wolf. I fear my dear lord mixt
With some conspiracy against the wolf.
This mountain shepherd never dream’d of Rome.
(Sings.) Safe from the wolf to the fold ——
And that great break of precipice that runs
Thro’ all the wood, where twenty years ago
Huntsman, and hound, and deer were all neck-broken!
Nay, here he comes.
Enter SINNATUS followed by, SYNORIX.
SINNATUS (angrily).
I tell thee, my good fellow,
My arrow struck the stag.
SYNORIX.
But was it so?
Nay, you were further off: besides the wind
Went with my arrow.
SINNATUS.
I am sure I struck him.
SYNORIX.
And I am just as sure, my lord, I struck him.
(Aside.) And I may strike your game when you are gone.
CAMMA.
Come, come, we will not quarrel about the stag.
I have had a weary day in watching you.
Yours must have been a wearier. Sit and eat,
And take a hunter’s vengeance on the meats.
SINNATUS.
No, no — we have eaten — we are heated. Wine!
CANNA.
Who is our guest?
SINNATUS.
Strato he calls himself.
[CAMMA offers wine to SYNORIX, while SINNATUS helps himself
SINNATUS.
I pledge you, Strato.
[Drinks.
SYNORIX.
And I you, my lord.
[Drinks.
SINNATUS (seeing the cup sent to Camma).
What’s here?
CAMMA.
A strange gift sent to me to-day.
A sacred cup saved from a blazing shrine
Of our great Goddess, in some city where
Antonius past. I had believed that Rome
Made war upon the peoples not the Gods.
SYNORIX.
Most like the city rose against Antonius,
Whereon he fired it, and the sacred shrine
By chance was burnt along with it.
SINNATUS.
Had you then
No message with the cup?
CAMMA.
Why, yes, see here.
[Gives him the scroll.
SINNATUS (reads).
‘To the admired Camma, — beheld you afar off — loved you — sends you this cup — the cup we use in our marriages — cannot at present write himself other than
‘A GALATIAN SERVING BY FORCE IN THE ROMAN LEGION.’
Serving by force! Were there no boughs to hang on,
Rivers to drown in? Serve by force? No force
Could make me serve by force.
SYNORIX.
How then, my lord?
The Roman is encampt without your city —
The force of Rome a thousand-fold our own.
Must all Galatia hang or drown herself?
And you a Prince and Tetrarch in this province —
SINNATUS.
Province
SYNORIX.
Well, well, they call it so in Rome.
SINNATUS (angrily).
Province!
SYNORIX.
A noble anger! but Antonius
To-morrow will demand your tribute — you,
Can you make war? Have you alliances?
Bithynia, Pontus, Paphlagonia?
We have had our leagues of old with Eastern kings.
There is my hand — if such a league there be.
What will you do?
SINNATUS.
Not set myself abroach
And run my mind out to a random guest
Who join’d me in the hunt. You saw my hounds
True to the scent; and we have two-legg’d dogs
Among us who can smell a true occasion,
And when to bark and how.
SYNORIX.
My good Lord Sinnatus,
I once was at the hunting of a lion.
Roused by the clamour of the chase he woke,
Came to the front of the wood — his monarch mane
Bristled about his quick ears — he stood there
Staring upon the hunter. A score of dogs
Gnaw’d at his ankles: at the last he felt
The trouble of his feet, put forth one paw,
Slew four, and knew it not, and so remain’d
Staring upon the hunter: and this Rome
Will crush you if you wrestle with her; then
Save for some slight report in her own Senate
Scarce know what she has done.
(Aside.) Would I could move him,
Provoke him any way! (Aloud.) The Lady Camma,
Wise I am sure as she is beautiful,
Will close with me that to submit at once
Is better than a wholly-ho
peless war,
Our gallant citizens murder’d all in vain,
Son, husband, brother gash’d to death in
And the small state more cruelly trampled on
Than had she never moved.
CAMMA.
Sir, I had once
A boy who died a babe; but were he living
And grown to man and Sinnatus will’d it, I
Would set him in the front rank of the fight
With scarce a pang. (Rises.) Sir, if a state submit
At once, she may be blotted out at once
And swallow’d in the conqueror’s chronicle.
Whereas in wars of freedom and defence
The glory and grief of battle won or lost
Solders a race together — yea — tho’ they fail,
The names of those who fought and fell are like
A bank’d-up fire that flashes out again
From century to century, and at last
May lead them on to victory — I hope so —
Like phantoms of the Gods.
SINNATUS.
Well spoken, wife.
SYNORIX (bowing).
Madam, so well I yield.
SINNATUS.
I should not wonder
If Synorix, who has dwelt three years in Rome
And wrought his worst against his native land,
Returns with this Antonius.
SYNORIX.
What is Synorix?
SINNATUS.
Galatian, and not know? This Synorix
Was Tetrarch here, and tyrant also — did
Dishonour to our wives.
SYNORIX.
Perhaps you judge him
With feeble charity: being as you tell me
Tetrarch, there might be willing wives enough
To feel dishonour, honour.
CAMMA.
Do not say so.
I know of no such wives in all Galatia.
There may be courtesans for aught I know
Whose life is one dishonour.
Enter ATTENDANT.
ATTENDANT (aside).
My lord, the men!
SINNATUS (aside).
Our anti-Roman faction?
ATTENDANT (aside).
Ay, my lord.
SYNORIX (overhearing). (Aside.)
I have enough — their anti-Roman faction.
SINNATUS (aloud).
Some friends of mine would speak with me without.
You, Strato, make good cheer till I return.
[Exit.
SYNORIX.
I have much to say, no time to say it in.
First, lady, know myself am that Galatian
Who sent the cup.
CAMMA.
I thank you from my heart.
SYNORIX.
Then that I serve with
Rome to serve Galatia.
That is my secret: keep it, or you sell me
To torment and to death. [Coming closer.
For your ear only —
I love you — for your love to the great Goddess.