John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

And now I’ll not die less. Let dull Octavia

  Survive, to mourn him dead: My nobler fate

  Shall knit our spousals with a tie, too strong

  For Roman laws to break.

  Iras. Will you then die? 490

  Cleo. Why shouldst thou make that question?

  Iras. Cæsar is merciful.

  Cleo. Let him be so

  To those that want his mercy: My poor lord

  Made no such covenant with him, to spare me 495

  When he was dead. Yield me to Cæsar’s pride?

  What! to be led in triumph through the streets,

  A spectacle to base plebeian eyes;

  While some dejected friend of Antony’s,

  Close in a corner, shakes his head, and mutters 500

  A secret curse on her who ruined him!

  I’ll none of that.

  Char. Whatever you resolve,

  I’ll follow, even to death.

  Iras. I only feared 505

  For you; but more should fear to live without you.

  Cleo. Why, now, ’tis as it should be. Quick, my friends,

  Despatch; ere this, the town’s in Cæsar’s hands:

  My lord looks down concerned, and fears my stay,

  Lest I should be surprised; 510

  Keep him not waiting for his love too long.

  You, Charmion, bring my crown and richest jewels;

  With them, the wreath of victory I made

  (Vain augury!) for him, who now lies dead:

  You, Iras, bring the cure of all our ills. 515

  Iras. The aspics, madam?

  Cleo. Must I bid you twice? [Exit CHARMION and IRAS.

  ’Tis sweet to die, when they would force life on me,

  To rush into the dark abode of death,

  And seize him first; if he be like my love, 520

  He is not frightful, sure.

  We’re now alone, in secrecy and silence;

  And is not this like lovers? I may kiss

  These pale, cold lips; Octavia does not see me:

  And, oh! ’tis better far to have him thus, 525

  Than see him in her arms. — Oh, welcome, welcome!

  Enter CHARMION and IRAS

  Char. What must be done?

  Cleo. Short ceremony, friends;

  But yet it must be decent. First, this laurel 530

  Shall crown my hero’s head: he fell not basely,

  Nor left his shield behind him. — Only thou

  Couldst triumph o’er thyself; and thou alone

  Wert worthy so to triumph.

  Char. To what end 535

  These ensigns of your pomp and royalty?

  Cleo. Dull, that thou art! why ’tis to meet my love;

  As when I saw him first, on Cydnus’ bank,

  All sparkling, like a goddess: so adorned,

  I’ll find him once again; my second spousals 540

  Shall match my first in glory. Haste, haste, both,

  And dress the bride of Antony.

  Char. ’Tis done.

  Cleo. Now seat me by my lord. I claim this place,

  For I must conquer Cæsar too, like him, 545

  And win my share of the world. — Hail, you dear relics

  Of my immortal love!

  O let no impious hand remove you hence:

  But rest for ever here! Let Egypt give

  His death that peace, which it denied his life. — 550

  Reach me the casket.

  Iras. Underneath the fruit

  The aspic lies.

  Cleo. Welcome, thou kind deceiver! [Putting aside the leaves.

  Thou best of thieves: who, with an easy key, 555

  Dost open life, and, unperceived by us,

  Even steal us from ourselves; discharging so

  Death’s dreadful office, better than himself;

  Touching our limbs so gently into slumber,

  That Death stands by, deceived by his own image, 560

  And thinks himself but sleep.

  Serap. The queen, where is she? [Within.

  The town is yielded, Cæsar’s at the gates.

  Cleo. He comes too late to invade the rights of death!

  Haste, bare my arm, and rouse the serpent’s fury. [Holds out her arm, and draws it back. 565

  Coward flesh,

  Wouldst thou conspire with Cæsar to betray me,

  As thou wert none of mine? I’ll force thee to it,

  And not be sent by him,

  But bring, myself, my soul to Antony. [Turns aside, and then shows her arm bloody. 570

  Take hence; the work is done.

  Serap. Break ope the door, [Within.

  And guard the traitor well.

  Char. The next is ours.

  Iras. Now, Charmion, to be worthy 575

  Of our great queen and mistress. [They apply the aspics.

  Cleo. Already, death, I feel thee in my veins:

  I go with such a will to find my lord,

  That we shall quickly meet.

  A heavy numbness creeps through every limb, 580

  And now ’tis at my head: My eyelids fall,

  And my dear love is vanquished in a mist.

  Where shall I find him, where? O turn me to him,

  And lay me on his breast! — Cæsar, thy worst;

  Now part us, if thou canst. [Dies. [IRAS sinks down at her feet, and dies; CHARMION stands behind her chair, as dressing her head. 585

  Enter SERAPION, two Priests, ALEXAS bound, Egyptians

  Priest. Behold, Serapion,

  What havoc death has made!

  Serap. ’Twas what I feared. —

  Charmion, is this well done? 590

  Char. Yes, ’tis well done, and like a queen, the last

  Of her great race: I follow her. [Sinks down: dies.

  Alex. ’Tis true,

  She has done well: Much better thus to die,

  Than live to make a holiday in Rome. 595

  Serap. See how the lovers sit in state together,

  As they were giving laws to half mankind!

  The impression of a smile, left in her face,

  Shows she died pleased with him for whom she lived,

  And went to charm him in another world. 600

  Cæsar’s just entering: grief has now no leisure.

  Secure that villain, as our pledge of safety,

  To grace the imperial triumph. — Sleep, blest pair,

  Secure from human chance, long ages out,

  While all the storms of fate fly o’er your tomb; 605

  And fame to late posterity shall tell,

  No lovers lived so great, or died so well. [Exeunt.

  EPILOGUE

  POETS, like disputants, when reasons fail,

  Have one sure refuge left — and that’s to rail.

  Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thundered through the pit;

  And this is all their equipage of wit.

  We wonder how the devil this difference grows 5

  Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:

  For, ‘faith, the quarrel rightly understood,

  ’Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.

  The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;

  And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot: 10

  For ’tis observed of every scribbling man,

  He grows a fop as fast as e’er he can;

  Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,

  If pink or purple best become his face.

  For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays; 15

  Nor likes your wit just as you like his plays;

  He has not yet so much of Mr. Bayes.

  He does his best; and if he cannot please,

  Would quietly sue out his writ of ease.

  Yet, if he might his own grand jury call, 20

  By the fair sex he begs to stand or fall.

  Let Cæsar’s power the men’s ambition move,

  But grace you him who lost the world for love!<
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  Yet if some antiquated lady say,

  The last age is not copied in his play; 25

  Heaven help the man who for that face must drudge,

  Which only has the wrinkles of a judge.

  Let not the young and beauteous join with those:

  For should you raise such numerous hosts of foes,

  Young wits and sparks he to his aid must call; 30

  ’Tis more than one man’s work to please you all.

  OEDIPUS

  A TRAGEDY

  Hi proprium decus et partum indignantur honorem,

  Ni teneant —

  Virg.

  Vos exemplaria Græca

  Nocturnâ versate manu, versate diurnâ.

  Horat.

  The dreadful subject of this piece has been celebrated by several ancient and modern dramatists. Of seven tragedies of Sophocles which have reached our times, two are founded on the history of Œdipus. The first of these, called “Œdipus Tyrannus,” has been extolled by every critic since the days of Aristotle, for the unparalleled art with which the story is managed. The dreadful secret, the existence of which is announced by the pestilence, and by the wrath of the offended deities, seems each moment on the verge of being explained, yet, till the last act, the reader is still held in horrible suspense. Every circumstance, resorted to for the purpose of evincing the falsehood of the oracle, tends gradually to confirm the guilt of Œdipus, and to accelerate the catastrophe; while his own supposed consciousness of innocence, at once interests us in his favour, and precipitates the horrible discovery. Dryden, who arranged the whole plan of the following tragedy, although assisted by Lee in the execution, was fully aware of the merit of the “Œdipus Tyrannus;” and, with the addition of the under-plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, has traced out the events of the drama, in close imitation of Sophocles. The Grecian bard, however, in concurrence with the history or tradition of Greece, has made Œdipus survive the discovery of his unintentional guilt, and reserved him, in blindness and banishment, for the subject of his second tragedy of “Œdipus Coloneus.” This may have been well judged, considering that the audience were intimately acquainted with the important scenes which were to follow among the descendants of Œdipus, with the first and second wars against Thebes, and her final conquest by the ancestors of those Athenians, before whom the play was rehearsed, led on by their demi-god Theseus. They were also prepared to receive, with reverence and faith, the belief on which the whole interest turns, that if Œdipus should be restored to Thebes, the vengeance of the gods against the devoted city might be averted; and to applaud his determination to remain on Athenian ground, that the predestined curse might descend on his unnatural sons and ungrateful country. But while the modern reader admires the lofty tone of poetry and high strain of morality which pervades “Œdipus Coloneus,” it must appear more natural to his feelings, that the life of 118 the hero, stained with unintentional incest and parricide, should be terminated, as in Dryden’s play, upon the discovery of his complicated guilt and wretchedness. Yet there is something awful in the idea of the monarch, blind and exiled, innocent in intention, though so horribly criminal in fact, devoted, as it were, to the infernal deities, and sacred from human power and violence by the very excess of his guilt and misery. The account of the death of Œdipus Coloneus reaches the highest tone of sublimity. While the lightning flashes around him, he expresses the feeling, that his hour is come; and the reader anticipates, that, like Malefort in the “Unnatural Combat,” he is to perish by a thunder-bolt. Yet, for the awful catastrophe, which we are artfully led to expect, is substituted a mysterious termination, still more awful. Œdipus arrays himself in splendid apparel, and dismisses his daughters and the attending Athenians. Theseus alone remains with him. The storm subsides, and the attendants return to the place, but Œdipus is there no longer — he had not perished by water, by sword, nor by fire — no one but Theseus knew the manner of his death. With an impressive hint, that it was as strange and wonderful as his life had been dismally eventful, the poet drops a curtain over the fate of his hero. This last sublime scene Dryden has not ventured to imitate; and the rants of Lee are a poor substitute for the calm and determined despair of the “Œdipus Coloneus.”

  Seneca, perhaps to check the seeds of vice in Nero, his pupil, to whom incest and blood were afterwards so familiar, composed the Latin tragedy on the subject of Œdipus, which is alluded to by Dryden in the following preface. The cold declamatory rhetorical stile of that philosopher was adapted precisely to counteract the effect, which a tale of terror produces on the feelings and imagination. His taste exerted itself in filling up and garnishing the more trifling passages, which Sophocles had passed over as unworthy of notice, and in adjusting incidents laid in the heroic age of Grecian simplicity, according to the taste and customs of the court of Nero. Yet though devoid of dramatic effect, of fancy, and of genius, the Œdipus of Seneca displays the masculine eloquence and high moral sentiment of its author; and if it does not interest us in the scene of fiction, it often compels us to turn our thoughts inward, and to study our own hearts.

  The Œdipe of Corneille is in all respects unworthy of its great author. The poet considering, as he states in his introduction, that the subject of Œdipus tearing out his eyes was too horrible to be presented before ladies, qualifies its terrors by the introduction of a love intrigue betwixt Theseus and Dirce. The unhappy propensity of the French poets to introduce long discussions upon la belle passion, addressed merely to the understanding, without respect to feeling or propriety, is nowhere more ridiculously displayed than in “Œdipe.” The play opens with the following polite speech of Theseus to Dirce:

  N’ecoutez plus, madame, une pitie cruelle,

  Qui d’un fidel amant vous ferait un rebelle:

  La gloire d’obeir n’a rien que me soit doux,

  Lorsque vous m’ordonnez de m’eloigner de vous.

  Quelque ravage affreux qu’etale ici la peste,

  L’absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste;

  Et d’un si grand peril l’image s’offre en vain,

  Quand ce peril douteux epargne un mal certain.

  Act premiere, Scene premiere.

  It is hardly possible more prettily to jingle upon the peril douteux, and the mal certain; but this is rather an awkward way of introducing the account of the pestilence, with which all the other dramatists have opened their scene. Œdipus, however, is at once sensible of the cause which detained Theseus at his melancholy court, amidst the horrors of the plague:

  Je l’avais bien juge qu’ un interet d’amour

  Fermait ici vos yeux aux perils de ma cour.

  Œdipo conjectere opus est — it would have been difficult for any other person to have divined such a motive. The conduct of the drama is exactly suitable to its commencement; the fate of Œdipus and of Thebes, the ravages of the pestilence, and the avenging of the death of Laius, are all secondary and subordinate considerations to the loves of Theseus and Dirce, as flat and uninteresting a pair as ever spoke platitudes in French hexameters. So much is this the engrossing subject of the drama, that Œdipus, at the very moment when Tiresias is supposed to be engaged in raising the ghost of Laius, occupies himself in a long scene of scolding about love and duty with Dirce; and it is not till he is almost bullied by her off the stage, that he suddenly recollects, as an apology for his retreat,

  Mais il faut aller voir ce qu’a fait Tiresias.

  Considering, however, the declamatory nature of the French dialogue, and the peremptory rule of their drama, that love, or rather gallantry, must be the moving principle of every performance, 120 it is more astonishing that Corneille should have chosen so masculine and agitating a subject, than that he should have failed in treating it with propriety or success.

  In the following tragedy, Dryden has avowedly adopted the Greek model; qualified, however, by the under plot of Adrastus and Eurydice, which contributes little either to the effect or merit of the play. Creon, in his ambition and
his deformity, is a poor copy of Richard III., without his abilities; his plots and treasons are baffled by the single appearance of Œdipus; and as for the loves and woes of Eurydice, and the prince of Argos, they are lost in the horrors of the principal story, like the moonlight amid the glare of a conflagration. In other respects, the conduct of the piece closely follows the “Œdipus Tyrannus,” and, in some respects, even improves on that excellent model. The Tiresias of Sophocles, for example, upon his first introduction, denounces Œdipus as the slayer of Laius, braves his resentment, and prophesies his miserable catastrophe. In Dryden’s play, the first anathema of the prophet is levelled only against the unknown murderer; and it is not till the powers of hell have been invoked, that even the eye of the prophet can penetrate the horrible veil, and fix the guilt decisively upon Œdipus. By this means, the striking quarrel betwixt the monarch and Tiresias is, with great art, postponed to the third act; and the interest, of course, is more gradually heightened than in the Grecian tragedy.

  The first and third acts, which were wholly written by Dryden, maintain a decided superiority over the rest of the piece. Yet there are many excellent passages scattered through Lee’s scenes; and as the whole was probably corrected by Dryden, the tragedy has the appearance of general consistence and uniformity. There are several scenes, in which Dryden seems to have indulged his newly adopted desire of imitating the stile of Shakespeare. Such are, in particular, the scene of Œdipus walking in his sleep, which bears marks of Dryden’s pen; and such, also, is the incantation in the third act. Seneca and Corneille have thrown this last scene into narrative. Yet, by the present large size of our stages, and the complete management of light and shade, the incantation might be represented with striking effect; an advantage which, I fear, has been gained by the sacrifice of others, much more essential to the drama, considered as a dignified and rational amusement. The incantation itself is nobly written, and the ghost of Laius can only be paralleled in Shakespeare.

  The language of Œdipus is, in general, nervous, pure, and elegant; and the dialogue, though in so high a tone of passion, is natural and affecting. Some of Lee’s extravagancies are lamentable exceptions to this observation. This may be instanced in the passage, where Jocasta threatens to fire Olympus, destroy the heavenly 121 furniture, and smoke the deities like bees out of their ambrosial hives; and such is the still more noted wish of Œdipus;