ARBACES | |
345 | And I should blush far more to take the grantor’s! |
BELESES | |
Have written otherwise. | |
ARBACES | |
And marshall’d me the way in all their brightness, | |
I would not follow. | |
BELESES | |
350 | Than a scared beldam’s dreaming of the dead, |
And waking in the dark. – Go to – go to. | |
ARBACES | |
Even as the proud imperial statue stands | |
Looking the monarch of the kings around it, | |
355 | And sways, while they but ornament, the temple. |
BELESES | |
And that there was some royalty within him – | |
What then? he is the nobler foe. | |
ARBACES | |
The meaner. – Would he had not spared us! | |
BELESES | |
360 | Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily? |
ARBACES | |
Than live ungrateful. | |
BELESES | |
Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and | |
Fools treachery – and, behold, upon the sudden, | |
365 | Because for something or for nothing, this |
Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously, | |
’Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turn’d | |
Into – what shall I say? – Sardanapalus! | |
I know no name more ignominious. | |
ARBACES | |
370 | An hour ago, who dared to term me such |
Had held his life but lightly – as it is, | |
I must forgive you, even as he forgave us – | |
Semiramis herself would not have done it. | |
BELESES | |
Not even a husband. | |
375 | ARBACES |
BELESES | |
ARBACES | |
I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven; | |
And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty. | |
You may do your own deeming – you have codes, | |
380 | And mysteries, and corollaries of |
Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction, | |
And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches. | |
And now you know me. | |
BELESES | |
ARBACES | |
With you. | |
BELESES | |
385 | As quit me? |
ARBACES | |
And not a soldier’s. | |
BELESES | |
Truce with these wranglings, and but hear me. | |
ARBACES | |
There is more peril in your subtle spirit | |
Than in a phalanx. | |
BELESES | |
390 | I’ll on alone! |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
ARBASES | |
BELESES | |
A despised monarch. Look to it, Arbaces: | |
I have still aided, cherish’d, loved, and urged you; | |
Was willing even to serve you, in the hope | |
395 | To serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself |
Seem’d to consent, and all events were friendly, | |
Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk | |
Into a shallow softness; but now, rather | |
Than see my country languish, I will be | |
400 | Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant, |
Or one or both, for sometimes both are one; | |
And if I win, Arbaces is my servant. | |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
The | |
[ | |
405 | PANIA |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
Let’s hear it. | |
PANIA | |
Repair to your respective satrapies | |
Of Babylon and Media. | |
BELESES | |
410 | PANIA |
Their household train. | |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
Say, we depart. | |
PANIA | |
Depart, and not to bear your answer. | |
BELESES | |
Well, sir, we will accompany you hence. | |
415 | PANIA |
Of honour which befits your rank, and wait | |
Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds not. | |
[ | |
BELESES | |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
That grate the palace, which is now our prison — | |
420 | No further. |
ARBACES | |
The realm itself, in all its wide extension, | |
Yawns dungeons at each step for thee and me. | |
BELESES | |
ARBACES | |
One more than mine. | |
BELESES | |
425 | Let me hope better than thou augurest; |
At present, let us hence as best we may. | |
Thou dost agree with me in understanding | |
This order as a sentence? | |
ARBACES | |
Interpretation should it bear? it is | |
430 | The very policy of orient monarchs — |
Pardon and poison — favours and a sword — | |
A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep. | |
How many satraps in his father’s time — | |
For he I own is, or at least | |
435 | BELESES |
ARBACES | |
How many satraps have I seen set out | |
In his sire’s day for mighty vice-royalties, | |
Whose tombs are on their path! I know not how, | |
But they all sicken’d by the way, it was | |
440 | So long and heavy. |
BELESES | |
The free air of the city, and we’ll shorten | |
The journey. | |
ARBACES | |
It may be. | |
BELESES | |
They mean us to die privately, but not | |
445 | Within the palace or the city walls, |
Where we are known, and may have partisans: | |
If they had meant to slay us here, we were | |
No longer with the living. Let us hence. | |
ARBACES | |
450 | BELESES |
alarm’d | |
Mean? Let us but rejoin our troops, and march. | |
ARBACES | |
BELESES | |
There’s time, there’s heart, and hope, and power, and means, | |
Which their half measures leave us in full scope. — | |
455 | Away! |
ARBACES | |
Relapse to guilt! | |
BELESES | |
Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I say! | |
Let’s leave this place, the air grows thick and choking, | |
And the walls have a scent of night-shade – hence! | |
460 | Let us not leave them time for further council. |
Our quick departure proves our civic zeal; |