SALEMENES | |
Our numbers gather; and I’ve ordered onward | |
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved, | |
All fresh and fiery, to be pour’d upon them | |
335 | In their retreat, which soon will be a flight. |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Faster than I could follow with my Bactrians, | |
Who spared no speed. I am spent: give me a seat. | |
SALEMENES | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
340 | For mind nor body: let me have a couch, |
[ | |
A peasant’s stool, I care not what: so — now | |
I breathe more freely. | |
SALEMENES | |
The brightest and most glorious of your life. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
345 | Bring me some water. |
SALEMENES | |
Your most austere of counsellors, would now Suggest a purpler beverage. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
But there’s enough of that shed; as for wine, | |
350 | I have learn’d to-night the price of the pure element: |
Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice renew’d, | |
With greater strength than the grape ever gave me, | |
My charge upon the rebels. Where’s the soldier | |
Who gave me water in his helmet? | |
ONE OF THE GUARDS | |
355 | An arrow pierced his brain, while, scattering |
The last drops from his helm, he stood in act | |
To place it on his brows. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
And slain to serve my thirst: that’s hard, poor slave! | |
Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with | |
360 | Gold: all the gold of earth could ne’er repay |
The pleasure of that draught; for I was parch’d | |
As I am now. | |
[ | |
I live again – from henceforth | |
The goblet I reserve for hours of love, | |
But war on water. | |
SALEMENES | |
365 | Which girds your arm? |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
And yet it feels a little stiff and painful, | |
Now I am cooler. | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
870 | That ornament was ever aught to me, |
Save an incumbrance. | |
MYRRHA [ | |
A leech of the most skilful: pray, retire: | |
I will unbind your wound and tend it. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
For now it throbs sufficiently: but what | |
375 | Know’st thou of wounds? yet wherefore do I ask? |
Know’st thou, my brother, where I lighted on | |
This minion? | |
SALEMENES | |
Like frighten’d antelopes. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Of the young lion, femininely raging, | |
380 | (And femininely meaneth furiously, |
Because all passions in excess are female,) | |
Against the hunter flying with her cub, | |
She urged on with her voice and gesture, and | |
Her floating hair and flashing eyes, the soldiers, | |
385 | In the pursuit. |
SALEMENES | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Made warriors of more than me. I paused | |
To look upon her, and her kindled cheek; | |
Her large black eyes, that flash’d through her long hair | |
As it stream’d o’er her; her blue veins that rose | |
390 | Along her most transparent brow; her nostril |
Dilated from its symmetry; her lips | |
Apart; her voice that clove through all the din, | |
As a lute’s pierceth through the cymbal’s clash, | |
Jarr’d but not drown’d by the loud brattling; her | |
395 | Waved arms, more dazzling with their own born whiteness |
Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up | |
From a dead soldier’s grasp; – all these things made | |
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess | |
Of victory, or Victory herself, | |
400 | Come down to hail us hers. |
SALEMENES | |
Again the love-fit’s on him, and all’s lost, | |
Unless we turn his thoughts. | |
[ | |
Think of your wound – you said even now ’twas painful. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
405 | SALEMENES |
Receive reports of progress made in such | |
Orders as I had given, and then return | |
To hear your further pleasure. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
SALEMENES | |
MYRRHA | |
SALEMENES | |
410 | Which, were he not my sister’s lord — But now |
I have no time: thou lovest the king? | |
MYRRHA | |
Sardanapalus. | |
SALEMENES | |
M | |
SALEMENES | |
and all | |
415 | He should, or should not be; to have him live, |
Let him not sink back into luxury. | |
You have more power upon his spirit than | |
Wisdom within these walls, or fierce rebellion | |
Raging without: look well that he relapse not. | |
420 | MYRRHA |
To urge me on to this: I will not fail. | |
All that a woman’s weakness can — | |
SALEMENES | |
Omnipotent o’er such a heart as his: | |
Exert it wisely. | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
425 | With my stern brother? I shall soon be jealous. |
MYRRHA | |
A man more worthy of a woman’s love – | |
A soldier’s trust – a subject’s reverence – | |
A king’s esteem – the whole woorld’s admiration! | |
430 | SARDANAPALUS |
Hear those sweet lips grow eloquent in aught | |
That throws me into shade; yet you speak truth. | |
MYRRHA | |
Pray, lean on me. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
[ | |
Act IV | |
SCENE I | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
Which thus convulses slumber: shall I wake him? | |
No, he seems calmer. Oh, thou God of Quiet! | |
Whose reign is o’er seal’d eyelids and soft dreams, | |
5 | Or deep, deep sleep, so as to be unfathom’d, |
Look like thy brother, Death, – so still – so stirless – | |
For then we are happiest, as it may be, we | |
Are happiest of all within the realm | |
Of thy stern, silent, and unwakening twin. | |
10 | Again he moves – again the play of pain |
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust | |
Crisps the reluctant lake that lay so calm | |
Beneath the mountain shadow; or the blast | |
Ruffles the autumn leaves, that drooping cling | |
15 | Faintly and motionless to their loved boughs. |
I must awake him – yet not yet: who knows | |
From what I rouse him? It seems pain; but if |