OFFICER | |
Lost almost past recovery. Zames! Where | |
Is Zames? | |
MYRRHA | |
230 | To watch before the apartment of the women. |
[ | |
MYRRHA | |
What need have I to know more? In those words, | |
Those little words, a kingdom and a king, | |
A line of thirteen ages, and the lives | |
235 | Of thousands, and the fortune of all left |
With life, are merged; and I, too, with the great, | |
Like a small bubble breaking with the wave | |
Which bore it, shall be nothing. At the least, | |
My fate is in my keeping: no proud victor | |
240 | Shall count me with his spoils. |
[ | |
PANIA | |
Myrrha, without delay; we must not lose | |
A moment – all that’s left us now. | |
MYRRHA | |
PANIA | |
The river, by a secret passage. | |
MYRRHA | |
245 | He lives – |
PANIA | |
And beg you to live on for his sake, till | |
He can rejoin you. | |
MYRRHA | |
PANIA | |
Despair can do; and step by step disputes | |
250 | The very palace. |
MYRRHA | |
Their shouts come ringing through the ancient halls, | |
Never profaned by rebel echoes till | |
This fatal night. Farewell, Assyria’s line! | |
Farewell to all of Nimrod! Even the name | |
255 | Is now no more. |
PANIA | |
MYRRHA | |
I loved him to the last. | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
We’ll die where we were born – in our own halls. | |
Serry your ranks – stand firm. I have despatch’d | |
260 | A trusty satrap for the guard of Zames, |
All fresh and faithful; they’ll be here anon. | |
All is not over. – Pania, look to Myrrha. | |
[ | |
SALEMENES | |
One for Assyria! | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
265 | My faithful Bactrians, I will henceforth be |
King of your nation, and we’ll hold together | |
This realm as province. | |
SALEMENES | |
[ | |
ARBACES | |
charge! | |
BELESES | |
[ | |
270 | BELESES |
SARDANAPALUS | |
My warlike priest, and precious prophet, and | |
Grateful and trusty subject: – yield, I pray thee. | |
I would reserve thee for a fitter doom, | |
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood. | |
275 | BELESES |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Though but a young astrologer, the stars; | |
And ranging round the zodiac, found thy fate | |
In the sign of the Scorpion, which proclaims | |
That thou wilt now be crush’d. | |
BELESES | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
280 | Now call upon thy planets, will they shoot |
From the sky to preserve their seer and credit? | |
[ | |
The villain was a prophet after all. | |
Upon them – ho! there – victory is ours. | |
[ | |
MYRRHA | |
285 | Of fellow soldiers conquering without thee? |
PANIA | |
MYRRHA | |
Think not of me – a single soldier’s arm | |
Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard, | |
I need no guard: what, with a world at stake, | |
290 | Keep watch upon a woman? Hence, I say, |
Or thou art shamed! Nay, then, I will go forth, | |
A feeble female, ’midst their desperate strife, | |
And bid thee guard me | |
Thy sovereign. | |
[ | |
PANIA | |
295 | If aught of ill betide her, better I |
Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds her | |
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights | |
For that too; and can I do less than he, | |
Who never flash’d a scimitar till now? | |
300 | Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though |
In disobedience to the monarch. | |
[ | |
[ | |
ALTADA | |
What, gone? yet she was here when the fight raged | |
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them? | |
SFERO | |
305 | They probably are but retired to make |
Their way back to the harem. | |
ALTADA | |
Prove victor, as it seems even now he must, | |
And miss his own Ionian, we are doom’d | |
To worse than captive rebels. | |
SFERO | |
310 | She cannot be fled far; and, found, she makes |
A richer prize to our soft sovereign | |
Than his recover’d kingdom. | |
ALTADA | |
Ne’er fought more fiercely to win empire, than | |
His silken son to save it: he defies | |
315 | All augury of foes or friends; and like |
The close and sultry summer’s day, which bodes | |
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such thunder | |
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth. | |
The man’s inscrutable. | |
SFERO | |
320 | All are the sons of circumstance: away — |
Let’s seek the slave out, or prepare to be | |
Tortured for his infatuation, and | |
Condemn’d without a crime. | |
[ | |
[ | |
SALEMENES | |
Flattering: they are beaten backward from the palace, | |
325 | And we have open’d regular access |
To the troops station’d on the other side | |
Euphrates, who may still be true; nay, must be, | |
When they hear of our victory. But where | |
Is the chief victor? where’s the king? | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
330 | SALEMENES |
SARDANAPALUS | |
We’ve clear’d the palace — |