John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Had been too much in conscience for thy calling.

  [Aside.

  Ptol. He dies, that’s out of doubt.

  Cleom. Your brother, sir!

  Ptol. Why do you ask that question?

  Cleom. Because I had a brother,

  (O grief to say I had, and have not now!)

  Wise, valiant, temperate; and, in short, a Spartan;

  Had all the virtues, which your counsellor

  Imputed to your brother as his crimes.

  He loved me well; so well, he could but die,

  To show he loved me better than his life.

  He lost it for me in Sellasia’s field;

  And went the greatest ghost of all our name,

  That ever had a brother, or a king.

  Sosib. Wipe off the tears that stand upon your eyes;

  Good-nature works too far. Kings have no brothers,

  What men call such are rivals of their crowns;

  Yours timed his death, so as to merit grief.

  Who knows, but he laid in, by that last action,

  The means to have betrayed you, had he lived?

  Cleom. I would say something; but I curb my passion,— ‘

  Because thou art the father to my friend. —

  To you, sir, this: if you condemn your brother,

  [To PTOLEMY.

  Only because he’s bounteous, great, and brave, —

  Know, you condemn those virtues, own you want them.

  Had you a thousand brothers, such as he,

  You ought to show you are above them all,

  By daring to reward, and cherish them,

  As bucklers of your crown in time of war,

  And in soft peace, the jewels that adorn it.

  Cas. I stand corrected, sir: he ought to live.

  Ptol. I think so too.

  Sosib. I do not wish his death,

  Howe’er I seemed to give that rugged counsel.

  Clean. Well said again, father! Comply, comply;

  Follow the sun, true shadow. — [ASIDE.

  Sosib. I only wish my master may be safe;

  But there are mercenaries in the army,

  Three thousand Greeks, the flower of all our troops,

  Like wolves indeed among Egyptian lambs;

  If these revolt — (I do not say they will) —

  But if your brother please to take the crown,

  And be not good enough to let you reign,

  Those Greeks, where’er they go, will turn the scale.

  Ptol. What think you, Cleomenes?

  Cleom. He says true.

  Ptol. Then Magas must not live.

  Cleom. That does not follow.

  Fear not those mercenaries: they are mine,

  Devoted to my interest, commanded by my nod:

  They are my limbs of war, and I their soul.

  Were they in arms against you at your gates,

  High in their rage, and fixed upon the spoil,

  Should I say, Hold! — nay, should I only frown,

  They could not bear my eyes; but, awed and mastered,

  Like lions to their keepers, would couch and fawn,

  And disobey their hunger.

  Ptol. Wondrous man! — [Embraces him.

  How I admire thy virtue!

  Cas. And his genius.

  Some are born kings,

  Made up of three parts fire, so full of heaven,

  It sparkles at their eyes. Inferior souls

  Know them as soon as seen, by sure instinct,

  To be their lords, and naturally worship

  The secret god within them.

  Sosib. Sir, I humbly beg

  A word in private. — [TO Ptolemy.

  Ptol. Madam? —

  Cas. You may go.

  Sosib. Cleanthes, follow me.

  [Exeunt PTOLEMY, SOSIBIUS, CLEANTHES.

  Enter CLEONIDAS.

  Cleon. Pantheus brought me hither to attend

  .you.

  Cleom. And thou art welcome; but thou comest too late.

  Cas. Your page of honour?

  Cleon. The mistake is easy in such a court as this,

  Where princes look like pages.

  Cleom. ’Tis my son.

  Cas. I must have leave to love you, royal youth;

  Above all nations I adore a Greek,

  And of all Greeks a Spartan.

  [Looking on Cleomenes.

  Cleom. What he is,

  And what I am, are owing to your favour.

  Cas. [TO Cleon.] Shall I not be your mistress? — [LOOKING ON Cleomenes.

  Cleon. No; for I would not get Egyptians.

  Cas. For what, sir, do you take us?

  Cleon. For what you are.

  When the gods moulded up the paste of man,

  Some of their dough was left upon their hands,

  For want of souls; and so they made Egyptians.

  They were intended for four feet; and when

  They come to run before our noble Spartans,

  They’ll curse the gods for the two legs they owed them.

  Cas. Then, since you will not let me be your mistress,

  Would I had been your mother!

  [Looking still on Cleomenes.

  Cleon. So would not I:

  For then I had not been all Spartan.

  Cas. [ASIDE.] He answers not my glances, stupid man!

  My tender looks, my languishing regards,

  Are like mis-aiming arrows, lost in air,

  And miss the flying prey.

  [ While she walks, Cleomenes and Cleonidas are looking on a picture hanging on the side of the Scenes. She takes out a pocket-glass, and looks in it.

  These eyes, I thank the gods,

  Are still the same. The diamonds are not dimmed,

  Nor is their lustre lost. In Ptolemy

  Small boast: Alas! Ptolemy has no soul;

  ’Tis what he wants I love in Cleomenes.

  Perhaps he dares not think I would be loved;

  Then must I make the advance, and, making, lose

  The vast prerogative our sex enjoys,

  Of being courted first. — Courted! To what?

  To our own wishes: there’s the point; but still,

  To speak our wishes first; — forbid it, pride,

  Forbid it, modesty! — True; they forbid it,

  But nature does not. When we are athirst,

  Or hungry, will imperious nature stay?

  Not eat nor drink, before ’tis bid fall on? —

  Well, sex, if this must be,

  That I must not invite, I may at least be suffered

  To lay some kind occasion in his way,

  That, if he dare but speak, he may succeed.

  [She turns round to them, and observes what they are doing. Cleomenes turns and meets her; Cleonidas looks still on the picture.

  Cleom. I durst not have presumed to interrupt

  Your private thoughts.

  Cas. They wholly were employed in serving you.

  But DURST NOT, and PRESUME, are words of fear;

  I thought they were not in your Spartan tongue;

  For my sake banish them.

  On what were you so earnestly employed,

  You would not look this way?

  Cleom. A picture, madam.

  Cas. View it again, ’tis worth a second sight;

  Your son observes it still.— ‘Twere well to help

  My lover’s understanding.

  [goes with him to the picture.

  Know you this piece, young prince?

  Cleon. Some battle, I believe; and in that thought,

  I gaze with such delight.

  Cleom. Some rape, I guess.

  Cas. That’s near the true design, and yet mistaken;

  ’Tis Paris, bearing from your Spartan shore

  The beauteous Helen. How do you approve it?

  Cleom. Not in the least, for ’tis a scurvy piece.

  Cas. And yet ’tis known to be Apelles’ hand.<
br />
  The style is his; you grant he was a master.

  Cleom. ’Tis scurvy still, because it represents

  A base, dishonest act; to violate

  All hospitable rites, to force away

  His benefactor’s wife: — Ungrateful villain!

  And so the gods, the avenging gods have judged.

  Cleon. Was he a Spartan king that suffered this?

  Sure he revenged the rape.

  Cleom. He aid, my boy,

  And slew the ravisher.

  Cas. Look better, sir; you’ll find it was no rape.

  Mark well that Helen in her lover’s arms:

  Can you not see, she but affects to strive?

  She heaves not up her hands to heaven for help,

  But hugs the kind companion of her flight.

  See how her tender fingers strain his sides!

  ’Tis an embrace; a grasping of desire;

  A very belt of love, that girds his waist.

  She looks as if she did not fear to fall,

  But only lose her lover, if she fell.

  Observe her eyes; how slow they seem to roll

  Their wishing looks, and languish on his face!

  Observe the whole design, and you would swear,

  She ravished Paris, and not Paris her.

  Cleom. Sparta has not to boast of such a woman;

  Nor Troy to thank her, for her ill-placed love.

  Cas. But Paris had. As for the war that followed,

  ’Twas but a fable of a Grecian wit,

  To raise the valour of his countrymen:

  For Menelaus was an honest wretch;

  A tame good man, that never durst resent;

  A mere convenient husband, dull and slavish,

  By nature meant the thing the lovers made him.

  Cleom. His goodness aggravates their crime the more.

  Had Menelaus used his Helen ill,

  Had he been jealous, or distrusted both,

  I would allow a grain or two for love,

  And plead in their excuse.

  Cas. There was their safety, that he was not jealous.

  What would you more of him? he was a fool,

  And put the happy means into their hands.

  Cleom. I cannot much commend my countryman.

  Cas. Indeed, my lord, your countryman was dull,

  That did not understand so plain a courtship.

  Have Spartans eyes for nothing, not to see

  So manifest a passion?

  Cleom. Yes, too well. —— [ASIDE.

  Madam, your goodness interests you too much

  In Helen’s cause. I have no more to urge,

  But that she was a wife: that word, a wife,

  In spite of all your eloquence, condemns her.

  Cas. You argue justly; therefore ’twas a crime:

  But, had she been a mistress, not a wife,

  Her love had been a virtue, to forsake

  The nauseous bed of a loathed, fulsome king,

  And fly into a sprightly lover’s arms.

  Her love had been a merit to her Paris,

  To leave her country, and, what’s more, her kingdom,

  With a poor fugitive prince to sail away,

  And bear her wealth along, to make him happy.

  Cleom. You put your picture in the fairest light:

  But both the lovers broke their plighted vows;

  He to Oenone, she to Menelaus.

  Cas. The gods, that made two fools, had done more justly

  To have matched Menelaus with Oenone.

  Think better of my picture, it deserves

  A second thought; it speaks; the Helen speaks.

  Cleon. It speaks Egyptian, then; a base, dishonest tongue.

  Cas. You are too young to understand her language. —— [TO Cleonidas.

  Do not thank me, — [TO Cleomenes.

  Till I have brought your business to perfection.

  Doubt not my kindness; nothing shall be wanting

  To make your voyage happy.

  Cleom. I only fear the excess of your full bounty,

  To give me more than what my wants require.

  [EXEUNT Cleomenes AND Cleonidas.

  Cas. Meaning, perhaps, my person and my love:

  I would not think it so; and yet I fear,

  And while I fear, his voyage shall be hindered.

  No breath of wind

  Can stir, to waft him hence, unless I please:

  I am the goddess that commands the seas.

  In vain he vows at any other shrine,

  My heart is in his hands, his fate’s in mine.

  [Exit CASSANDRA.

  ACT III.

  SCENE I. — The King’s Apartment.

  A Table set. Ptolemy, Sosibius, Cassandra, sitting: Ptolemy at the upper end; Cassandra sitting on the one side, Sosibius on the other.

  Ptol. I must confess, ’twas obvious.

  Sosib. He said he could command them with his nod:

  Can he do this with mercenaries, raised

  Not at his charge, but yours? by you maintained?

  What could he more, had they been Spartans bom?

  Cas. What would you hence infer?

  Sosib. What you observed:

  Some are born kings, and so is Cleomenes.

  COS. A great soul dares not call himself a villain.

  He has that interest, and will use it nobly;

  To serve, and not to ruin his protector.

  Sosib. Is Egypt’s safety, and the king’s, and yours,

  Fit to be trusted on a bare suppose,

  That he is honest? Honest, let him be;

  But on his own experiment, not ours.

  J Man is but man; unconstant still, and various;

  There’s no to-morrow in him, like to-day.

  Perhaps the atoms rolling in his brain

  Make him think honestly this present hour;

  The next, a swarm of base, ungrateful thoughts

  May mount aloft; and where’s our Egypt then?

  Who would trust chance, since all men have the seeds

  Of good and ill, which should work upward first?

  Cas. All men! then you are one; and by that rule,

  Your wicked atoms may be working now

  To give bad counsel, that you still may govern.

  Sosib. I would the king would govern.

  Cas. Because you think I have too much command.

  Ptol. Would you would rule me both by turns, in quiet,

  And let me take my ease!

  Cas. Then my turn’s first.

  Sosib. Our master’s safety, in sound reason, ought

  To be preferred to both.

  Ptol. So thinks Cassandra too.

  Cas. No; court Sosibius, and cast Cassandra off.

  Ptol. What have I said or done,

  To merit this unkindness?

  Tell me but what you think of Cleomenes,

  And be my oracle.

  Cas. I know him grateful.

  Sosib. To know him grateful, is enough for

  Jove.

  Cas. And therefore not too much for me in

  Egypt:

  I say, I know him honest.

  Ptol. Then I know it.

  Now may Sosibius speak?

  Cas. He may; but not to contradict my knowledge.

  Sosib. Then I concur, to let him go for Greece;

  And wish our Egypt fairly rid of him.

  For, as our Apis, though in temples fed,

  And under golden roofs, yet loathes his food,

  Because restrained; and longs to roam in meads,

  Among the milky mothers of the herd:

  So Cleomenes, kept by force in Egypt,

  Is sullen at our feasts, abhors our dainties,

  And longs to change them for his Spartan broth.

  He may be dangerous here; then send him hence,

  With aid enough to conquer all he lost,

  And make him formidable to mankind.

 
Cas. He may be formidable then to us?

  That thou wouldst say.

  Sosib. No; for you know him grateful.

  Cas. Would thou wouldst learn to speak without a double,

  Thou Delphian statesman! — [RISES.

  Sosib. Would I could know your wishes, that I might!

  I would but smooth their way, and make them easy. — [BOWING.

  Cas. Good old man! — [SMILING.

  A little over-zealous, but well-meaning.

  My wishes are the honour of my king;

  That Ptolemy may keep his royal word,

  And I my promise, to procure this aid.

  If to be mistress signifies command,

  Let this be done; if not, the king may find

  Another beauty, worthier of his bed,

  And I another lover, less ungrateful.

  Ptol. Let Egypt sink before that fatal day!

  No, we are one; Cassandra, we are one;

  Or I am nothing; thou art Ptolemy.

  Cas. Now you deserve to be the first of kings,

  Because you rank yourself the first of lovers.

  What can I do to show Cassandra grateful?

  Nothing but this —

  To be so nice in my concerns for you;

  To doubt where doubts are not; to be too fearful;

  To raise a bugbear shadow of a danger,

  And then be frighted, though it cannot reach you.

  Sosib. Be pleased to name your apprehensions, madam.

  Cas. Plain souls, like mine, judge others by themselves;

  Therefore I hold our Cleomenes honest.

  But since ’tis possible, though barely so,

  That he may prove ungrateful,

  I would have pledges given us of his faith;

  His wife, his mother, and his son, be left

  As hostages in Egypt.

  Sosib. Admirable!

  Some god inspired you with this prudent counsel.

  Ptol. I thought so too, but that I durst not speak.

  Sosib. Leave me to manage this.

  Cas. My best Sosibius!

  But do it surely, by the easiest means;

  Infuse it gently; do not pour it down:

  Let him not think he stands suspected here;

  And, least of all, by me.

  Sosib. He shall not, madam. —

  Now, sir, the illumination feast attends you;

  For Apis has appeared.

  Ptol. Why, then I must be formal;

  Go to the temple. —

  Come, my fair Cassandra,

  That I may have an object worth my worship.

  [Aside.

  Cas. The god that I adore is in my breast;

  This is the temple; this the sacrifice.

  But to the powers divine we make appeal,

  With great devotion, and with little zeal.

  [EXEUNT Ptolemy AND Cassandra.

  Sosib. [SOLUS.] Yes, yes, it shall be done; but not her way. —

  Call in my son Cleanthes. — This Cassandra