by Byron
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And lead them forth to glory.
SALEMENES:Wherefore not?
Semiramis – a woman only – led
These our Assyrians to the solar shores
Of Ganges.
SARDANAPALUS: ’Tis most true. And how return’d?
SALEMENES: Why, like a man – a hero; baffled, but
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Not vanquish’d. With but twenty guards, she made
Good her retreat to Bactria.
SARDANAPALUS:And how many
Left she behind in India to the vultures?
SALEMENES: Our annals say not.
SARDANAPALUS:Then I will say for them –
That she had better woven within her palace
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Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards
Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens,
And wolves, and men – the fiercer of the three,
Her myriads of fond subjects. Is this glory?
Then let me live in ignominy ever.
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SALEMENES: All warlike spirits have not the same fate.
Semiramis, the glorious parent of
A hundred kings, although she fail’d in India,
Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm
Which she once sway’d – and thou might’st sway.
SARDANAPALUS: I sway them –
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She but subdued them.
SALEMENES:It may be ere long
That they will need her sword more than your sceptre.
SARDANAPALUS: There was a certain Bacchus, was there not?
I’ve heard my Greek girls speak of such – they say
He was a god, that is, a Grecian god,
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An idol foreign to Assyria’s worship,
Who conquer’d this same golden realm of Ind
Thou prat’st of, where Semiramis was vanquish’d.
SALEMENES: I have heard of such a man; and thou perceiv’st
That he is deem’d a god for what he did.
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SARDANAPALUS: And in his godship I will honour him –
Not much as man. What, ho! my cupbearer!
SALEMENES: What means the king?
SARDANAPALUS:To worship your new god
And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I say.
[Enter Cupbearer.]
SARDANAPALUS [addressing the Cupbearer]: Bring me the golden goblet thick with gems,
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Which bears the name of Nimrod’s chalice. Hence,
Fill full, and bear it quickly.
[Exit Cupbearer.]
SALEMENES:Is this moment
A fitting one for the resumption of
Thy yet unslept-off revels?
[Re-enter Cupbearer, with wine.]
SARDANAPALUS [taking the cup from him]: Noble kinsman,
If these barbarian Greeks of the far shores
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And skirts of these our realms lie not, this Bacchus
Conquer’d the whole of India, did he not?
SALEMENES: He did, and thence was deem’d a deity.
SARDANAPALUS: Not so: – of all his conquests a few columns,
Which may be his, and might be mine, if I
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Thought them worth purchase and conveyance, are
The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed,
The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke.
But here, here in this goblet is his title
To immortality – the immortal grape
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From which he first express’d the soul, and gave
To gladden that of man, as some atonement
For the victorious mischiefs he had done.
Had it not been for this, he would have been
A mortal still in name as in his grave;
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And, like my ancestor Semiramis,
A sort of semi-glorious human monster.
Here’s that which deified him - let it now
Humanise thee; my surly, chiding brother,
Pledge me to the Greek god!
SALEMENES:For all thy realms
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I would not so blaspheme our country’s creed.
SARDANAPALUS: That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero,
That he shed blood by oceans; and no god,
Because he turn’d a fruit to an enchantment,
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
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The young, makes weariness forget his toil,
And fear her danger; opens a new world
When this, the present, palls. Well, then I pledge thee
And him as a true man, who did his utmost
In good or evil to surprise mankind.
[Drinks.]
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SALEMENES: Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour?
SARDANAPALUS: And if I did, ’twere better than a trophy,
Being bought without a tear. But that is not
My present purpose: since thou wilt not pledge me,
Continue what thou pleasest.
[To the Cupbearer:]
Boy, retire.
[Exit Cupbearer.]
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SALEMENES: I would but have recall’d thee from thy dream;
Better by me awaken’d than rebellion.
SARDANAPALUS: Who should rebel? or why? what cause? pretext?
I am the lawful king, descended from
A race of kings who knew no predecessors.
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What have I done to thee, or to the people,
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up against me?
SALEMENES: Of what thou hast done to me, I speak not.
SARDANAPALUS:But
Thou think’st that I have wrong’d the queen: is’t not so?
SALEMENES: Think! Thou hast wrong’d her!
SARDANAPALUS:Patience, prince, and hear me.
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She has all power and splendour of her station,
Respect, the tutelage of Assyria’s heirs,
The homage and the appanage of sovereignty.
I married her as monarchs wed – for state
And loved her as most husbands love their wives.
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If she or thou supposedst I could link me
Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate,
Ye knew nor me, nor monarchs, nor mankind.
SALEMENES: I pray thee, change the theme: my blood disdains
Complaint, and Salemenes’ sister seeks not
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Reluctant love even from Assyria’s lord!
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves.
The queen is silent.
SARDANAPALUS:And why not her brother?
SALEMENES: I only echo thee the voice of empires,
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Which he who long neglects not long will govern.
SARDANAPALUS: The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the desert’s dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
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Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids, Or Babylonian walls.
SALEMENES:Yet these are trophies
More worthy of a people and their prince
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,
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And lavish’d treasures, and contemned virtues.
SARDANAPALUS: Or for my trophies I have founded cities:
There’s Tarsus and Anchialus, both built
In one day - what could that blood-loving beldame,
My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis,
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Do more, except destroy them?
SALEMENES:’Tis most true;
I own t
hy merit in those founded cities,
Built for a whim, recorded with a verse
Which shames both them and thee to coming ages.
SARDANAPALUS: Shame me! By Baal, the cities, though well built,
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Are not more goodly than the verse! Say what
Thou wilt ’gainst me, my mode of life or rule,
But nothing ’gainst the truth of that brief record.
Why, those few lines contain the history
Of all things human: hear – ‘Sardanapalus,
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The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.
Eat, drink, and love; the rest’s not worth a fillip.’
SALEMENES: A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,
For a king to put up before his subjects!
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SARDANAPALUS: Oh, thou wouldst have me doubtless set up edicts —
‘Obey the king – contribute to his treasure –
Recruit his phalanx – spill your blood at bidding –
Fall down and worship, or get up and toil.’
Or thus – ‘Sardanapalus on this spot
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Slew fifty thousand of his enemies.
These are their sepulchres, and this his trophy.’
I leave such things to conquerors; enough
For me, if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less, and glide
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Ungroaning to the tomb: I take no license
Which I deny to them. We all are men.
SALEMENES: Thy sires have been revered as gods -
SARDANAPALUS:In dust
And death where they are neither gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are gods;
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At least they banqueted upon your gods,
And died for lack of farther nutriment.
Those gods were merely men; look to their issue –
I feel a thousand mortal things about me,
But nothing godlike, – unless it may be
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The thing which you condemn, a disposition
To love and to be merciful, to pardon
The follies of my species, and (that’s human)
To be indulgent to my own.
SALEMENES:Alas!
The doom of Nineveh is seal’d. – Woe – woe
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To the unrivall’d city!
SARDANAPALUS:What dost dread?
SALEMENES: Thou art guarded by thy foes: in a few hours
The tempest may break out which overwhelms thee,
And thine and mine; and in another day
What is shall be the past of Belus’ race.
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SARDANAPALUS: What must we dread?
SALEMENES:Ambitious treachery,
Which has environ’d thee with snares; but yet
There is resource: empower me with thy signet
To quell the machinations, and I lay
The heads of thy chief foes before thy feet.
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SARDANAPALUS: The heads – how many?
SALEMENES:Must I stay to number
When even thine own’s in peril? Let me go;
Give me thy signet – trust me with the rest.
SARDANAPALUS: I will trust no man with unlimited lives.
When we take those from others, we nor know
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What we have taken, nor the thing we give.
SALEMENES: Wouldst thou not take their lives who seek for thine?
SARDANAPALUS: That’s a hard question – But I answer, Yes.
Cannot the thing be done without? Who are they
Whom thou suspectest? – Let them be arrested.
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SALEMENES: I would thou wouldst not ask me; the next moment
Will send my answer through thy babbling troop
Of paramours and thence fly o’er the palace
Even to the city, and so baffle all. –
Trust me.
SARDANAPALUS:Thou knowest I have done so ever:
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Take thou the signet. [Gives the signet.]
SALEMENES: I have one more request. –
SARDANAPALUS: Name it.
SALEMENES: That thou this night forbear
the banquet
In the pavilion over the Euphrates.
SARDANAPALUS: Forbear the banquet! Not for all the
plotters
That ever shook a kingdom! Let them come,
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And do their worst: I shall not blench for them;
Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the goblet;
Nor crown me with a single rose the less;
Nor lose one joyous hour. – I fear them not.
SALEMENES: But thou wouldst arm thee, wouldst thou not, if needful?
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SARDANAPALUS: Perhaps. I have the goodliest armour, and
A sword of such a temper; and a bow
And javelin, which might furnish Nimrod forth:
A little heavy, but yet not unwieldy.
And now I think on ’t, ’tis long since I’ve used them,
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Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother?
SALEMENES: Is this a time for such fantastic trifling? –
If need be, wilt thou wear them?
SARDANAPALUS:Will I not?
Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves
Will not be ruled with less, I’ll use the sword
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Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff.
SALEMENES: They say thy sceptre’s turn’d to that already.
SARDANAPALUS: That’s false! but let them say so: the old Greeks,
Of whom our captives often sing, related
The same of their chief hero, Hercules,
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Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest
The populace of all the nations seize
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.
SALEMENES: They did not speak thus of thy fathers.
SARDANAPALUS:No;
They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat;
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And never changed their chains but for their armour:
Now they have peace and pastime, and the license
To revel and to rail; it irks me not.
I would not give the smile of one fair girl
For all the popular breath that e’er divided
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A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues
Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding,
That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread
Their noisome clamour?
SALEMENES:You have said they are men;
As such their hearts are something.
SARDANAPALUS:So my dogs’ are;
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And better, as more faithful: – but, proceed;
Thou hast my signet: – since they are tumultuous,
Let them be temper’d, yet not roughly, till
Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain,
Given or received; we have enough within us,
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The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,
Not to add to each other’s natural burthen
Of mortal misery, but rather lessen,
By mild reciprocal alleviation,
The fatal penalties imposed on life:
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But this they know not, or they will not know.
I have, by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:
I made no wars, I added no new imposts,
I interfered not with their civic lives,
I let them pass their days as best might suit them,
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Passing my own as suited me.
SALEMENES:Thou stopp’st
Short of the duties of a king; and therefore
/> They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.
SARDANAPALUS: They lie. - Unhappily, I am unfit
To be aught save a monarch; else for me
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The meanest Mede might be the king instead.
SALEMENES: There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so.
SARDANAPALUS: What mean’st thou? – ’tis thy secret; thou desirest
Few questions, and I’m not of curious nature.
Take the fit steps; and, since necessity
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Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne’er
Was man who more desired to rule in peace
The peaceful only: if they rouse me, better
They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes,
‘The mighty hunter.’ I will turn these realms
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To one wide desert chase of brutes, who were,
But mould no more, by their own choice, be human.
What they have found me, they belie; that which
They yet may find me – shall defy their wish
To speak it worse; and let them thank themselves.
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SALEMENES: Then thou at last canst feel?
SARDANAPALUS:Feel! who feels not
Ingratitude?
SALEMENES: I will not pause to answer
With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee,
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And thou may’st yet be glorious in thy reign,
As powerful in thy realm. Farewell!
[Exit SALEMENES.]
SARDANAPALUS [solus]:Farewell!
He’s gone; and on his finger bears my signet,
Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern
As I am heedless; and the slaves deserve
To feel a master. What may be the danger,
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I know not: he hath found it, let him quell it.
Must I consume my life – this little life –
In guarding against all may make it less?
It is not worth so much! It were to die
Before my hour, to live in dread of death,
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Tracing revolt; suspecting all about me,
Because they are near; and all who are remote,
Because they are far. But if it should be so —
If they should sweep me off from earth and empire,
Why, what is earth or empire of the earth?
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I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image;
To die is no less natural than those
Acts of this clay! ’Tis true I have not shed
Blood as I might have done in oceans, till
My name became the synonyme of death –
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A terror and a trophy. But for this
I feel no penitence; my life is love:
If I must shed blood, it shall be by force.
Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein
Hath flow’d for me, nor hath the smallest coin
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