by Byron
And chiefly thou, my priest, because I doubt thee
More than the soldier; and would doubt thee all
Wert thou not half a warrior: let us part
In peace – I’ll not say pardon – which must be
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Earn’d by the guilty; this I’ll not pronounce ye,
Although upon this breath of mine depends
Your own; and, deadlier for ye, on my fears.
But fear not – for that I am soft, not fearful –
And so live on. Were I the thing some think me,
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Your heads would now be dripping the last drops
Of their attainted gore from the high gates
Of this our palace, into the dry dust,
Their only portion of the coveted kingdom
They would be crown’d to reign o’er – let that pass.
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As I have said, I will not deem ye guilty,
Nor doom ye guiltless. Albeit better men
Than ye or I stand ready to arraign you;
And should I leave your fate to sterner judges,
And proofs of all kinds, I might sacrifice
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Two men, who, whatsoe’er they now are, were
Once honest. Ye are free, sirs.
ARBACES: Sire, this clemency —
BELESES [interrupting him]: Is worthy of yourself and, although innocent,
We thank—
SARDANAPALUS: Priest! keep your thanksgivings for Belus;
His offspring needs none.
BELESES:But being innocent —
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SARDANAPALUS: Be silent – Guilt is loud. If ye are loyal,
Ye are injured men, and should be sad, not grateful.
BELESES: So we should be, were justice always done
By earthly power omnipotent; but innocence
Must oft receive her right as a mere favour.
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SARDANAPALUS: That’s a good sentence for a homily,
Though not for this occasion. Prithee keep it
To plead thy sovereign’s cause before his people.
BELESES: I trust there is no cause.
SARDANAPALUS:No cause, perhaps;
But many causers: – if ye meet with such
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In the exercise of your inquisitive function
On earth, or should you read of it in heaven
In some mysterious twinkle of the stars,
Which are your chronicles, I pray you note,
That there are worse things betwixt earth and heaven
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Than him who ruleth many and slays none;
And, hating not himself, yet loves his fellows
Enough to spare even those who would not spare him
Were they once masters – but that’s doubtful. Satraps!
Your swords and persons are at liberty
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To use them as ye will – but from this hour
I have no call for either. Salemenes
Follow me.
[Exeunt SARDANAPALUS, SALEMENES, and the Train, &c., leaving ARBACES and BELESES.]
ARBACES: Beleses!
BELESES:Now, what think you?
ARBACES: That we are lost.
BELESES:That we have won the kingdom.
ARBACES: What? thus suspected – with the sword slung o’er us
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But by a single hair, and that still wavering,
To be blown down by his imperious breath
Which spared us – why, I know not.
BELESES:Seek not why;
But let us profit by the interval.
The hour is still our own – our power the same –
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The night the same we destined. He hath changed
Nothing except our ignorance of all
Suspicion into such a certainty
As must make madness of delay.
ARBACES: And yet —
BELESES: What, doubting still?
ARBACES:He spared our lives, nay, more,
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Saved them from Salemenes.
BELESES:And how long
Will he so spare? till the first drunken minute.
ARBACES: Or sober, rather. Yet he did it nobly;
Gave royally what we had forfeited
Basely —
BELESES: Say bravely.
ARBACES:Somewhat of both, perhaps.
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But it has touch’d me, and, whate’er betide,
I will no further on.
BELESES:And lose the world!
ARBACES: Lose any thing except my own esteem.
BELESES: I blush that we should owe our lives to such
A king of distaffs!
ARBACES:But no less we owe them;
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And I should blush far more to take the grantor’s!
BELESES: Thou may’st endure whate’er thou wilt – the stars
Have written otherwise.
ARBACES:Though they came down,
And marshall’d me the way in all their brightness,
I would not follow.
BELESES: This is weakness – worse
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Than a scared beldam’s dreaming of the dead,
And waking in the dark. – Go to – go to.
ARBACES: Methought he look’d like Nimrod as he spoke,
Even as the proud imperial statue stands
Looking the monarch of the kings around it,
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And sways, while they but ornament, the temple.
BELESES: I told you that you had too much despised him,
And that there was some royalty within him –
What then? he is the nobler foe.
ARBACES:But we
The meaner. – Would he had not spared us!
BELESES:So—
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Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily?
ARBACES: No – but it had been better to have died
Than live ungrateful.
BELESES:Oh, the souls of some men!
Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and
Fools treachery – and, behold, upon the sudden,
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Because for something or for nothing, this
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously,
’Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turn’d
Into – what shall I say? – Sardanapalus!
I know no name more ignominious.
ARBACES:But
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An hour ago, who dared to term me such
Had held his life but lightly – as it is,
I must forgive you, even as he forgave us –
Semiramis herself would not have done it.
BELESES: No – the queen liked no sharers of the kingdom
Not even a husband.
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ARBACES:I must serve him truly —
BELESES: And humbly?
ARBACES:No, sir, proudly – being honest.
I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven;
And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty.
You may do your own deeming – you have codes,
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And mysteries, and corollaries of
Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction,
And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches.
And now you know me.
BELESES:Have you finish’d?
ARBACES: Yes –
With you.
BELESES: And would, perhaps, betray as well
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As quit me?
ARBACES:That’s a sacerdotal thought,
And not a soldier’s.
BELESES: Be it what you will –
Truce with these wranglings, and but hear me.
ARBACES: No –
There is more peril in your subtle spirit
Than in a phalanx.
BELESES: If it must be so –
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I’ll on alone!
ARBACES:Alone!
BELESES:Thrones hold but one.
ARBASES: But this is fill’d.
BELESES: With worse than vacancy –
A despised monarch. Look to it, Arbaces:
I have still aided, cherish’d, loved, and urged you;
Was willing even to serve you, in the hope
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To serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself
Seem’d to consent, and all events were friendly,
Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk
Into a shallow softness; but now, rather
Than see my country languish, I will be
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Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant,
Or one or both, for sometimes both are one;
And if I win, Arbaces is my servant.
ARBACES: Your servant!
BELESES:Why not? better than be slave,
The pardon’d slave of she Sardanapalus!
[Enter PANIA.]
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PANIA: My lords, I bear an order from the king.
ARBACES: It is obey’d ere spoken.
BELESES:Notwithstanding,
Let’s hear it.
PANIA: Forthwith, on this very night,
Repair to your respective satrapies
Of Babylon and Media.
BELESES: With our troops?
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PANIA: My order is unto the satraps and
Their household train.
ARBACES:But—
BELESES:It must be obev’d:
Say, we depart.
PANIA:My order is to see you
Depart, and not to bear your answer.
BELESES [aside]:Ay!
Well, sir, we will accompany you hence.
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PANIA: I will retire to marshal forth the guard
Of honour which befits your rank, and wait
Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds not.
[Exit PANIA.]
BELESES: Now then obey!
ARBACES:Doubtless.
BELESES:Yes, to the gates
That grate the palace, which is now our prison —
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No further.
ARBACES: Thou hast harp’d the truth indeed!
The realm itself, in all its wide extension,
Yawns dungeons at each step for thee and me.
BELESES: Graves!
ARBACES:If I thought so, this good sword should dig
One more than mine.
BELESES:It shall have work enough.
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Let me hope better than thou augurest;
At present, let us hence as best we may.
Thou dost agree with me in understanding
This order as a sentence?
ARBACES:Why, what other
Interpretation should it bear? it is
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The very policy of orient monarchs —
Pardon and poison — favours and a sword —
A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep.
How many satraps in his father’s time —
For he I own is, or at least was, bloodless —
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BELESES: But will not, can not be so now.
ARBACES:I doubt it.
How many satraps have I seen set out
In his sire’s day for mighty vice-royalties,
Whose tombs are on their path! I know not how,
But they all sicken’d by the way, it was
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So long and heavy.
BELESES:Let us but regain
The free air of the city, and we’ll shorten
The journey.
ARBACES:’Twill be shorten’d at the gates,
It may be.
BELESES: No; they hardly will risk that.
They mean us to die privately, but not
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Within the palace or the city walls,
Where we are known, and may have partisans:
If they had meant to slay us here, we were
No longer with the living. Let us hence.
ARBACES: If I but thought he did not mean my life —
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BELESES: Fool! hence — what else should despotism
alarm’d
Mean? Let us but rejoin our troops, and march.
ARBACES: Towards our provinces?
BELESES:No; towards your kingdom.
There’s time, there’s heart, and hope, and power, and means,
Which their half measures leave us in full scope. —
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Away!
ARBACES: And I even yet repenting must
Relapse to guilt!
BELESES:Self-defence is a virtue,
Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I say!
Let’s leave this place, the air grows thick and choking,
And the walls have a scent of night-shade – hence!
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Let us not leave them time for further council.
Our quick departure proves our civic zeal;
Our quick departure hinders our good escort,
The worthy Pania, from anticipating
The orders of some parasangs from hence:
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Nay, there’s no other choice, but – hence, I say.
[Exit with ARBACES, who follows reluctantly.]
[Enter SARDANAPALUS and SALEMENES.]
SARDANAPALUS: Well, all is remedied, and without bloodshed,
That worst of mockeries of a remedy;
We are now secure by these men’s exile.
SALEMENES:Yes,
As he who treads on flowers is from the adder
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Twined round their roots.
SARDANAPALUS:Why, what wouldst have me do?
SALEMENES: Undo what you have done.
SARDANAPALUS:Revoke my pardon?
SALEMENES: Replace the crown now tottering on your temples.
SARDANAPALUS: That were tyrannical.
SALEMENES:But sure.
SARDANAPALUS:We are so.
What danger can they work upon the frontier?
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SALEMENES: They are not there yet – never should they be so,
Were I well listen’d to.
SARDANAPALUS:Nay, I have listen’d
Impartially to thee – why not to them?
SALEMENES: You may know that hereafter; as it is,
I take my leave to order forth the guard.
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SARDANAPALUS: And you will join us at the banquet?
SALEMENES:Sire,
Dispense with me – I am no wassailer:
Command me in all service save the Bacchant’s.
SARDANAPALUS: Nay, but ’tis fit to revel now and then.
SALEMENES: And fit that some should watch for those who revel
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Too oft. Am I permitted to depart?
SARDANAPALUS: Yes — Stay a moment, my good
Salemenes,
My brother, my best subject, better prince
Than I am king. You should have been the monarch,
And I – I know not what, and care not; but
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Think not I am insensible to all
Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind,
Though oft reproving, sufferance of my follies.
If I have spared these men against thy counsel,
That is, their lives – it is not that I doubt
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The advice was sound; but, let them live: we will not
Cavil about their lives – so let them mend them.
Their banishment will leave me still sound sleep,
Which their death had not left me.
SALEMENES:Thus you run
The risk to sleep for ever, to save traitors –
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A moment’s pang now changed for years of crime.
Still let them be mad
e quiet.
SARDANAPALUS:Tempt me not:
My word is past.
SALEMENES: But it may be recall’d.
SARDANAPALUS: ’Tis royal.
SALEMENES:And should therefore be decisive.
This half indulgence of an exile serves
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But to provoke – a pardon should be full,
Or it is none.
SARDANAPALUS: And who persuaded me
After I had repeal’d them, or at least
Only dismiss’d them from our presence, who
Urged me to send them to their satrapies?
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SALEMENES: True; that I had forgotten; that is, sire,
If they e’er reach’d their satrapies – why, then,
Reprove me more for my advice.
SARDANAPALUS:And if
They do not reach them – look to it! – in safety,
In safety, mark me – and security –
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Look to thine own.
SALEMENES:Permit me to depart;
Their safety shall be cared for.
SARDANAPALUS:Get thee hence, then;
And, prithee, think more gently of thy brother.
SALEMENES: Sire, I shall ever duly serve my sovereign.
[Exit SALEMENES.]
SARDANAPALUS [solus]: That man is of a temper too
severe;
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Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free
From all the taints of common earth – while I
Am softer clay, impregnated with flowers:
But as our mould is, must the produce be.
If I have err’d this time, ’tis on the side
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Where error sits most lightly on that sense
I know not what to call it; but it reckons
With me ofttimes for pain, and sometimes pleasure;
A spirit which seems placed about my heart
To count its throbs not quicken them and ask
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Questions which mortal never dared to ask me,
Nor Baal, though an oracular deity –
Albeit his marble face majestical
Frowns as the shadows of the evening dim
His brows to changed expression, till at times
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I think the statue looks in act to speak.
Away with these vain thoughts, I will be joyous –
And here comes Joy’s true herald.
[Enter MYRRHA.]
MYRRHA:King! the sky
Is overcast, and musters muttering thunder,
In clouds that seem approaching fast, and show
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In forked flashes a commanding tempest.
Will you then quit the palace?
SARDANAPALUS:Tempest, say’st thou?
MYRRHA: Ay, my good lord.
SARDANAPALUS:For my own part, I should be
Not ill content to vary the smooth scene,
And watch the warring elements; but this
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Would little suit the silken garments and
Smooth faces of our festive friends. Say, Myrrha,
Art thou of those who dread the roar of clouds?
MYRRHA: In my own country we respect their voices