by Byron
The carcasses of Inde – away! away!
Where am I? Where the spectres? Where – No – that
35
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!
MYRRHA: Alas! thou art pale, and on thy brow the drops
Gather like night dew. My beloved, hush –
40
Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world,
And thou art lord of this. Be of good cheer;
All will go well.
SARDANAPALUS: Thy hand – so – ’tis thy hand;
’Tis flesh; grasp – clasp – yet closer, till I feel
Myself that which I was.
MYRRHA:At least know me
45
For what I am, and ever must be – thine.
SARDANAPALUS: I know it now. I know this life again.
Ah, Myrrha! I have been where we shall be.
MYRRHA: My lord!
SARDANAPALUS: I’ve been i’ the grave – where worms
are lords,
And kings are — But I did not deem it so;
50
I thought ’twas nothing.
MYRRHA:So it is; except
Unto the timid, who anticipate
That which may never be.
SARDANAPALUS:Oh, Myrrha! if
Sleep shows such things, what may not death disclose?
MYRRHA: I know no evil death can show, which life
55
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,
60
Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven,
And fetters us to earth – at least the phantom,
Whate’er it have to fear, will not fear death.
SARDANAPALUS: I fear it not; but I have felt – have seen –
A legion of the dead.
MYRRHA:And so have I.
65
The dust we tread upon was once alive,
And wretched. But proceed: what hast thou seen?
Speak it, ’twill lighten thy dimm’d mind.
SARDANAPALUS:Methought –
MYRRHA: Yet pause, thou art tired — in pain — exhausted; all
Which can impair both strength and spirit: seek
70
Rather to sleep again.
SARDANAPALUS:Not now – I would not
Dream; though I know it now to be a dream
What I have dreamt: – and canst thou bear to hear it?
MYRRHA: I can bear all things, dreams of life or death,
Which I participate with you in semblance
75
Or full reality.
SARDANAPALUS: And this look’d real,
I tell you: after that these eyes were open,
I saw them in their flight – for then they fled.
MYRRHA: Say on.
SARDANAPALUS: I saw, that is, I dream’d myself
Here – here – even where we are, guests as we were,
80
Myself a host that deem’d himself but guest,
Willing to equal all in social freedom;
But, on my right hand and my left, instead
Of thee and Zames, and our custom’d meeting,
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark,
85
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 curl’d down
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose
90
With shaft-heads feather’d from the eagle’s wing,
That peep’d up bristling through his serpent hair.
I invited him to fill the cup which stood
Between us, but he answer’d not – I fil’d it –
He took it not, but stared upon me, till
95
I trembled at the fix’d glare of his eye:
I frown’d upon him as a king should frown –
He frown’d not in his turn, but look’d upon me
With the same aspect, which appall’d me more,
Because it changed not; and I turn’d for refuge
100
To milder guests, and sought them on the right,
Where thou wert wont to be. But —
[He pauses.]
MYRRHA:What instead?
SARDANAPALUS: In thy own chair – thy own place in the
banquet –
I sought thy sweet face in the circle – but
Instead – a grey-hair’d, wither’d, bloody-eyed,
105
And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing,
Female in garb, and crown’d upon the brow,
Furrow’d with years, yet sneering with the passion
Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust,
Sate: – my veins curdled.
MYRRHA:Is this all?
SARDANAPALUS:Upon
110
Her right hand – her lank, bird-like right hand – stood
A goblet, bubbling o’er with blood; and on
Her left, another, fill’d with – what I saw not,
But turn’d from it and her. But all along
The table sate a range of crowned wretches,
115
Of various aspects, but of one expression.
MYRRHA: And felt you not this a mere vision?
SARDANAPALUS:No:
It was so palpable, I could have touch’d them.
I turn’d from one face to another, in
The hope to find at last one which I knew
120
Ere I saw theirs: but no – all turn’d upon me,
And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared,
Till I grew stone, as they seem’d half to be,
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them,
And life in me: there was a horrid kind
125
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.
We were in an existence all apart
From heaven or earth — And rather let me see
130
Death all than such a being!
MYRRHA:And the end?
SARDANAPALUS: At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose
The hunter and the crone; and smiling on me –
Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of
The hunter smiled upon me – I should say,
135
His lips, for his eyes moved not – and the woman’s
Thin lips relax’d to something like a smile.
Both rose, and the crown’d figures on each hand
Rose also, as if aping their chief shades –
Mere mimics even in death – but I sate still:
140
A desperate courage crept through every limb,
And at the last I fear’d them not, but laugh’d
Full in their phantom faces. But then – then
The hunter laid his hand on mine: I took it,
And grasp’d it – but it melted from my own;
145
While he too vanish’d, and left nothing but
The memory of a hero, for he look’d so.
MYRRHA: And was: the ancestor of heroes, too,
And thine no less.
SARDANAPALUS: Ay, Myrrha, but the woman,
The female who remain’d, she flew upon me,
150
And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses;
And, flinging down the goblets on each hand,
Methought the
ir poisons flow’d around us, till
Each form’d a hideous river. Still she clung;
The other phantoms, like a row of statues,
155
Stood dull as in our temples, but she still
Embraced me, while I shrunk from her, as if,
In lieu of her remote descendant, I
Had been the son who slew her for her incest.
Then – then – a chaos of all loathsome things
160
Throng’d thick and shapeless: I was dead, yet feeling –
Buried, and raised again – consumed by worms,
Purged by the flames, and wither’d in the air!
I can fix nothing further of my thoughts,
Save that I long’d for thee, and sought for thee,
165
In all these agonies, – and woke and found thee.
MYRRHA: So shalt thou find me ever at thy side,
Here and hereafter, if the last may be.
But think not of these things – the mere creations
Of late events, acting upon a frame
170
Unused to toil, yet over-wrought by toil
Such as might try the sternest.
SARDANAPALUS:I am better.
Now that I see thee once more, what was seen
Seems nothing.
[Enter SALEMENES.]
SALEMENES:Is the king so soon awake?
SARDANAPALUS: Yes, brother, and I would I had not slept
175
For all the predecessors of our line
Rose up, methought, to drag me down to them.
My father was amongst them, too; but he,
I know not why, kept from me, leaving me
Between the hunter-founder of our race,
180
And her, the homicide and husband-killer,
Whom you call glorious.
SALEMENES:So I term you also,
Now you have shown a spirit like to hers.
By day-break I propose that we set forth,
And charge once more the rebel crew, who still
185
Keep gathering head, repulsed, but not quite quell’d.
SARDANAPALUS: How wears the night?
SALEMENES:There yet remain some hours
Of darkness: use them for your further rest.
SARDANAPALUS: No, not to-night, if ’tis not gone:
methought
I pass’d hours in that vision.
MYRRHA:Scarcely one;
190
I watch’d by you: it was a heavy hour,
But an hour only.
SARDANAPALUS: Let us then hold council;
Tomorrow we set forth.
SALEMENES:But ere that time,
I had a grace to seek.
SARDANAPALUS:’Tis granted.
SALEMENES:Hear it
Ere you reply too readily; and tis
195
For your ear only.
MYRRHA:Prince, I take my leave.
[Exit MYRRHA.]
SALEMENES: That slave deserves her freedom.
SARDANAPALUS:Freedom only!
That slave deserves to share a throne.
SALEMENES: Your patience –
’Tis not yet vacant, and ’tis of its partner
I come to speak with you.
SARDANAPALUS:How! of the queen?
200
SALEMENES: Even so. I judged it fitting for their safety,
That, ere the dawn, she sets forth with her children
For Paphlagonia, where our kinsman Cotta
Governs; and there at all events secure
My nephews and your sons their lives, and with them
205
Their just pretensions to the crown in case –
SARDANAPALUS: I perish – as is probable: well thought –
Let them set forth with a sure escort.
SALEMENES:That
Is all provided, and the galley ready
To drop down the Euphrates; but ere they
210
Depart, will you not see —
SARDANAPALUS:My sons? It may
Unman my heart, and the poor boys will weep;
And what can I reply to comfort them,
Save with some hollow hopes, and ill-worn smiles?
You know I cannot feign.
SALEMENES:But you can feel
215
At least, I trust so: in a word, the queen
Requests to see you ere you part – for ever.
SARDANAPALUS: Unto what end? what purpose? I will grant
Aught – all that she can ask – but such a meeting.
SALEMENES: You know, or ought to know, enough of women,
220
Since you have studied them so steadily,
That what they ask in aught that touches on
The heart, is dearer to their feelings or
Their fancy, than the whole external world.
I think as you do of my sister’s wish;
225
But ’twas her wish – she is my sister – you
Her husband – will you grant it?
SARDANAPALUS:’Twill be useless:
But let her come.
SALEMENES:I go.
[Exit SALEMENES.]
SARDANAPALUS:We have lived asunder
Too long to meet again – and now to meet!
Have I not cares enow, and pangs enow,
230
To bear alone, that we must mingle sorrows,
Who have ceased to mingle love?
[Re-enter SALEMENES and ZARINA.]
SALEMENES:My sister! Courage:
Shame not our blood with trembling, but remember
From whence we sprung. The queen is present, sire.
ZARINA: I pray thee, brother, leave me.
SALEMENES:Since you ask it.
[Exit SALEMENES.]
235
ZARINA: Alone with him! How many a year has pass’d,
Though we are still so young, since we have met,
Which I have worn in widowhood of heart.
He loved me not: yet he seems little changed –
Changed to me only – would the change were mutual!
240
He speaks not – scarce regards me – not a word –
Nor look – yet he was soft of voice and aspect,
Indifferent, not austere. My lord!
SARDANAPALUS:Zarina!
ZARINA: No, not Zarina – do not say Zarina.
That tone – that word – annihilate long years,
245
All things which make them longer.
SARDANAPALUS:’Tis too late
To think of these past dreams. Let’s not reproach –
That is, reproach me not – for the last time —
ZARINA: And first. I ne’er reproach’d you.
SARDANAPALUS:’Tis most true;
And that reproof comes heavier on my heart
250
Than — But our hearts are not in our own power.
ZARINA: Nor hands; but I gave both.
SARDANAPALUS:Your brother said
It was your will to see me, ere you went
From Nineveh with —
[He hesitates]
ZARINA:Our children: it is true.
I wish’d to thank you that you have not divided
255
My heart from all that’s left it now to love –
Those who are yours and mine, who look like you,
And look upon me as you look’d upon me
Once — But they have not changed.
SARDANAPALUS:Nor ever will.
I fain would have them dutiful.
ZARINA:I cherish
260
Those infants, not alone from the blind love
Of a fond mother, but as a fond woman.
They are now the only tie between us.
SARDANAPALUS:Deem not
I have not done you justice: ra
ther make them
Resemble your own line than their own sire.
265
I trust them with you – to you: fit them for
A throne, or, if that be denied — You have heard
Of this night’s tumults?
ZARINA:I had half forgotten,
And could have welcomed any grief save yours,
Which gave me to behold your face again.
270
SARDANAPALUS: The throne – I say it not in fear – but ’tis
In peril; they perhaps may never mount it:
But let them not for this lose sight of it.
I will dare all things to bequeath it them,
But if I fail, then they must win it back
275
Bravely – and, won, wear it wisely, not as I
Have wasted down my royalty.
ZARINA:They ne’er
Shall know from me of aught but what may honour
Their father’s memory.
SARDANAPALUS: Rather let them hear
The truth from you than from a trampling world.
280
If they be in adversity, they’ll learn
Too soon the scorn of crowds for crownless princes,
And find that all their father’s sins are theirs.
My boys! – I could have borne it were I childless.
ZARINA: Oh! do not say so – do not poison all
285
My peace left, by unwishing that thou wert
A father. If thou conquerest, they shall reign,
And honour him who saved the realm for them,
So little cared for as his own; and if —
SARDANAPALUS: ’Tis lost, all earth will cry out thank your father!
290
And they will swell the echo with a curse.
ZARINA: That they shall never do; but rather honour
The name of him, who, dying like a king,
In his last hours did more for his own memory
Than many monarchs in a length of days,
295
Which date the flight of time, but make no annals.
SARDANAPALUS: Our annals draw perchance unto their close;
But at the least, whate’er the past, their end
Shall be like their beginning – memorable.
ZARINA: Yet, be not rash – be careful of your life,
300
Live but for those who love.
SARDANAPALUS:And who are they?
A slave, who loves from passion – I’ll not say
Ambition – she has seen thrones shake, and loves;
A few friends who have revell’d till we are
As one, for they are nothing if I fall;
305
A brother I have injured – children whom
I have neglected, and a spouse —
ZARINA:Who loves.
SARDANAPALUS: And pardons?
ZARINA: I have never thought of this,
And cannot pardon till I have condemn’d.
SARDANAPALUS: My wife!
ZARINA:Now blessings on thee for that word!
310
I never thought to hear it more – from thee.
