by Lord Byron
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood.
Bel. Thine hour is come.
Sar. No, thine. — I’ve lately read,
Though but a young astrologer, the stars;
And ranging round the zodiac, found thy fate
In the sign of the Scorpion, which proclaims
That thou wilt now be crushed.
Bel. But not by thee.
[They fight; Beleses is wounded and disarmed.
Sar. (raising his sword to despatch him, exclaims) —
Now call upon thy planets, will they shoot 280
From the sky to preserve their seer and credit?
[A party of Rebels enter and rescue Beleses. They assail the King, who in turn, is rescued by a Party of his Soldiers, who drive the Rebels off.
The villain was a prophet after all.
Upon them — ho! there — victory is ours.
[Exit in pursuit.
Myr. (to Pan.) Pursue! Why stand’st thou here, and leavest the ranks
Of fellow-soldiers conquering without thee?
Pan. The King’s command was not to quit thee.
Myr. Me!
Think not of me — a single soldier’s arm
Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard,
I need no guard: what, with a world at stake,
Keep watch upon a woman? Hence, I say, 290
Or thou art shamed! Nay, then, I will go forth,
A feeble female, ‘midst their desperate strife,
And bid thee guard me there — where thou shouldst shield
Thy sovereign. [Exit Myrrha.
Pan. Yet stay, damsel! — She’s gone.
If aught of ill betide her, better I
Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds her
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights
For that too; and can I do less than he,
Who never flashed a scimitar till now?
Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though 300
In disobedience to the monarch. [Exit Pania.
Enter Altada and Sfero by an opposite door.
Alt. Myrrha!
What, gone? yet she was here when the fight raged,
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them?
Sfe. I saw both safe, when late the rebels fled;
They probably are but retired to make
Their way back to the harem.
Alt. If the King
Prove victor, as it seems even now he must,
And miss his own Ionian, we are doomed
To worse than captive rebels.
Sfe. Let us trace them:
She cannot be fled far; and, found, she makes 310
A richer prize to our soft sovereign
Than his recovered kingdom.
Alt. Baal himself
Ne’er fought more fiercely to win empire, than
His silken son to save it: he defies
All augury of foes or friends; and like
The close and sultry summer’s day, which bodes
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such thunder
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth.
The man’s inscrutable.
Sfe. Not more than others.
All are the sons of circumstance: away — 320
Let’s seek the slave out, or prepare to be
Tortured for his infatuation, and
Condemned without a crime. [Exeunt.
Enter Salemenes and Soldiers, etc.
Sal. The triumph is
Flattering: they are beaten backward from the palace,
And we have opened regular access
To the troops stationed on the other side
Euphrates, who may still be true; nay, must be,
When they hear of our victory. But where
Is the chief victor? where’s the King?
Enter Sardanapalus, cum suis, etc., and Myrrha.
Sar. Here, brother.
Sal. Unhurt, I hope.
Sar. Not quite; but let it pass. 330
We’ve cleared the palace — —
Sal. And I trust the city.
Our numbers gather; and I’ve ordered onward
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved,
All fresh and fiery, to be poured upon them
In their retreat, which soon will be a flight.
Sar. It is already, or at least they marched
Faster than I could follow with my Bactrians,
Who spared no speed. I am spent: give me a seat.
Sal. There stands the throne, Sire.
Sar. Tis no place to rest on,
For mind nor body: let me have a couch, 340
[They place a seat.
A peasant’s stool, I care not what: so — now
I breathe more freely.
Sal. This great hour has proved
The brightest and most glorious of your life.
Sar. And the most tiresome. Where’s my cupbearer?
Bring me some water.
Sal. (smiling) ‘Tis the first time he
Ever had such an order: even I,
Your most austere of counsellors, would now
Suggest a purpler beverage.
Sar. Blood — doubtless.
But there’s enough of that shed; as for wine,
I have learned to-night the price of the pure element: 350
Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice renewed,
With greater strength than the grape ever gave me,
My charge upon the rebels. Where’s the soldier
Who gave me water in his helmet?
One of the Guards. Slain, Sire!
An arrow pierced his brain, while, scattering
The last drops from his helm, he stood in act
To place it on his brows.
Sar. Slain! unrewarded!
And slain to serve my thirst: that’s hard, poor slave!
Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with
Gold: all the gold of earth could ne’er repay 360
The pleasure of that draught; for I was parched
As I am now. [They bring water — he drinks.
I live again — from henceforth
The goblet I reserve for hours of love,
But war on water.
Sal. And that bandage, Sire,
Which girds your arm?
Sar. A scratch from brave Beleses.
Myr. Oh! he is wounded!
Sar. Not too much of that;
And yet it feels a little stiff and painful,
Now I am cooler.
Myr. You have bound it with — —
Sar. The fillet of my diadem: the first time
That ornament was ever aught to me, 370
Save an incumbrance.
Myr. (to the Attendants). Summon speedily
A leech of the most skilful: pray, retire:
I will unbind your wound and tend it.
Sar. Do so,
For now it throbs sufficiently: but what
Know’st thou of wounds? yet wherefore do I ask?
Know’st thou, my brother, where I lighted on
This minion?
Sal. Herding with the other females,
Like frightened antelopes.
Sar. No: like the dam
Of the young lion, femininely raging
(And femininely meaneth furiously, 380
Because all passions in excess are female,)
Against the hunter flying with her cub,
She urged on with her voice and gesture, and
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the soldiers,
In the pursuit.
Sal. Indeed!
Sar. You see, this night
Made warriors of more than me. I paused
To look upon her, and her kindled cheek;
Her large black eyes, that flashed through her long hair
As it streamed o’er her; her blue veins that rose
Along her most transparent brow; her nostril 390
Dilated from its symmetry; her lips
Apart; her voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute pierceth through the cymbal’s clash,
Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling; her
Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born whiteness
Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up
From a dead soldier’s grasp; — all these things made
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess
Of victory, or Victory herself,
Come down to hail us hers.
Sal. (aside). This is too much. 400
Again the love-fit’s on him, and all’s lost,
Unless we turn his thoughts. (Aloud.) But pray thee, Sire,
Think of your wound — you said even now ‘twas painful.
Sar. That’s true, too; but I must not think of it.
Sal. I have looked to all things needful, and will now
Receive reports of progress made in such
Orders as I had given, and then return
To hear your further pleasure.
Sar. Be it so.
Sal. (in retiring). Myrrha!
Myr. Prince!
Sal. You have shown a soul to-night,
Which, were he not my sister’s lord — — But now 410
I have no time: thou lovest the King?
Myr. I love
Sardanapalus.
Sal. But wouldst have him King still?
Myr. I would not have him less than what he should be.
Sal. Well then, to have him King, and yours, and all
He should, or should not be; to have him live,
Let him not sink back into luxury.
You have more power upon his spirit than
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce rebellion
Raging without: look well that he relapse not.
Myr. There needed not the voice of Salemenes 420
To urge me on to this: I will not fail.
All that a woman’s weakness can — —
Sal. Is power
Omnipotent o’er such a heart as his:
Exert it wisely. [Exit Salemenes.
Sar. Myrrha! what, at whispers
With my stern brother? I shall soon be jealous.
Myr. (smiling). You have cause, Sire; for on the earth there breathes not
A man more worthy of a woman’s love,
A soldier’s trust, a subject’s reverence,
A king’s esteem — the whole world’s admiration!
Sar. Praise him, but not so warmly. I must not 430
Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in aught
That throws me into shade; yet you speak truth.
Myr. And now retire, to have your wound looked to,
Pray lean on me.
Sar. Yes, love! but not from pain.
[Exeunt omnes.
ACT IV
Scene I. — Sardanapalus discovered sleeping upon a Couch, and occasionally disturbed in his slumbers, with Myrrha watching.
Myr. (sola, gazing). I have stolen upon his rest, if rest it be,
Which thus convulses slumber: shall I wake him?
No, he seems calmer. Oh, thou God of Quiet!
Whose reign is o’er sealed eyelids and soft dreams,
Or deep, deep sleep, so as to be unfathomed,
Look like thy brother, Death, — so still, so stirless —
For then we are happiest, as it may be, we
Are happiest of all within the realm
Of thy stern, silent, and unwakening Twin.
Again he moves — again the play of pain 10
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake that lay so calm
Beneath the mountain shadow; or the blast
Ruffles the autumn leaves, that drooping cling
Faintly and motionless to their loved boughs.
I must awake him — yet not yet; who knows
From what I rouse him? It seems pain; but if
I quicken him to heavier pain? The fever
Of this tumultuous night, the grief too of
His wound, though slight, may cause all this, and shake 20
Me more to see than him to suffer. No:
Let Nature use her own maternal means,
And I await to second, not disturb her.
Sar. (awakening). Not so — although he multiplied the stars,
And gave them to me as a realm to share
From you and with you! I would not so purchase
The empire of Eternity. Hence — hence —
Old Hunter of the earliest brutes! and ye,
Who hunted fellow-creatures as if brutes!
Once bloody mortals — and now bloodier idols, 30
If your priests lie not! And thou, ghastly Beldame!
Dripping with dusky gore, and trampling on
The carcasses of Inde — away! away!
Where am I? Where the spectres? Where — No — that
Is no false phantom: I should know it ‘midst
All that the dead dare gloomily raise up
From their black gulf to daunt the living. Myrrha!
Myr. Alas! thou art pale, and on thy brow the drops
Gather like night dew. My beloved, hush —
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world, 40
And thou art lord of this. Be of good cheer;
All will go well.
Sar. Thy hand — so — ’tis thy hand;
‘Tis flesh; grasp — clasp — yet closer, till I feel
Myself that which I was.
Myr. At least know me
For what I am, and ever must be — thine.
Sar. I know it now. I know this life again.
Ah, Myrrha! I have been where we shall be.
Myr. My lord!
Sar. I’ve been i’ the grave — where worms are lords
And kings are — — But I did not deem it so;
I thought ‘twas nothing.
Myr. So it is; except 50
Unto the timid, who anticipate
That which may never be.
Sar. Oh, Myrrha! if
Sleep shows such things, what may not Death disclose?
Myr. I know no evil Death can show, which Life
Has not already shown to those who live
Embodied longest. If there be indeed
A shore where Mind survives, ‘twill be as Mind
All unincorporate: or if there flits
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay.
Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven, 60
And fetters us to earth — at least the phantom,
Whate’er it have to fear, will not fear Death.
Sar. I fear it not; but I have felt — have seen —
A legion of the dead.
Myr. And so have I.
The dust we tread upon was once alive,
And wretched. But proceed: what hast thou seen?
Speak it, ‘twill lighten thy dimmed mind.
Sar. Methought — —
Myr. Yet pause, thou art tired — in pain — exhausted; all
Which can impair both strength and spirit: seek
Rather to sleep again.
Sar. Not now — I would not 70
Dream; though I know it now to be a dream
What I have dreamt: — and canst thou bear to hear it?
Myr. I can bear all things, dreams of life or death,
Which I participate with you in semblance
Or full reality.
Sar. And this looked real,
I tell you: after that these eyes were open,
I saw them in their flight — for then they fled.
&nbs
p; Myr. Say on.
Sar. I saw, that is, I dreamed myself
Here — here — even where we are, guests as we were,
Myself a host that deemed himself but guest, 80
Willing to equal all in social freedom;
But, on my right hand and my left, instead
Of thee and Zames, and our customed meeting,
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark,
And deadly face; I could not recognise it,
Yet I had seen it, though I knew not where:
The features were a Giant’s, and the eye
Was still, yet lighted; his long locks curled down
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose
With shaft-heads feathered from the eagle’s wing, 90
That peeped up bristling through his serpent hair.
I invited him to fill the cup which stood
Between us, but he answered not; I filled it;
He took it not, but stared upon me, till
I trembled at the fixed glare of his eye:
I frowned upon him as a king should frown;
He frowned not in his turn, but looked upon me
With the same aspect, which appalled me more,
Because it changed not; and I turned for refuge
To milder guests, and sought them on the right, 100
Where thou wert wont to be. But — — [He pauses.
Myr. What instead?
Sar. In thy own chair — thy own place in the banquet —
I sought thy sweet face in the circle — but
Instead — a grey-haired, withered, bloody-eyed,
And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing,
Female in garb, and crowned upon the brow,
Furrowed with years, yet sneering with the passion
Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust,
Sate: — my veins curdled.
Myr. Is this all?
Sar. Upon
Her right hand — her lank, bird-like, right hand — stood 110
A goblet, bubbling o’er with blood; and on
Her left, another, filled with — what I saw not,
But turned from it and her. But all along
The table sate a range of crownéd wretches,
Of various aspects, but of one expression.
Myr. And felt you not this a mere vision?
Sar. No:
It was so palpable, I could have touched them.
I turned from one face to another, in
The hope to find at last one which I knew
Ere I saw theirs: but no — all turned upon me, 120
And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared,
Till I grew stone, as they seemed half to be,
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them,
And life in me: there was a horrid kind
Of sympathy between us, as if they
Had lost a part of death to come to me,
And I the half of life to sit by them.