MYRRHA | |
SALEMENES | |
My pangs, without sustaining life enough | |
130 | To make me useful: I would draw it forth |
And my life with it, could I but hear how | |
The fight goes. | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
SALEMENES | |
Is lost? | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
SALEMENES | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
succour, | |
135 | The last frail reed of our beleaguer’d hopes, |
Arrive with Ofratanes. | |
MYRRHA | |
Receive a token from your dying brother, | |
Appointing Zames chief? | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
140 | SARDANAPALUS |
I am alone. | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Though thinly mann’d, may still hold out against | |
Their present force, or aught save treachery: | |
But i’ the field — | |
MYRRHA | |
145 | Of Salemenes not to risk a sally |
Till ye were strenthen’d by the expected succours. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
These realms, of which thou wert the ornament, | |
150 | The sword and shield, the sole-redeeming honour, |
To call back — But I will not weep for thee; | |
Thou shalt be mourn’d for as thou wouldst be mourn’d. | |
It grieves me most that thou couldst quit this life | |
Believing that I could survive what thou | |
155 | Hast died for – our long royalty of race. |
If I redeem it, I will give thee blood | |
Of thousands, tears of millions, for atonement | |
(The tears of all the good are thine already). | |
If not, we meet again soon, – if the spirit | |
160 | Within us lives beyond: – thou readest mine, |
And dost me justice now. Let me once clasp | |
That yet warm hand, and fold that throbless heart | |
[ | |
To this which beats so bitterly. Now, bear | |
The body hence. | |
SOLDIER | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
165 | Place it beneath my canopy, as though |
The king lay there: when this is done, we will | |
Speak further of the rites due to such ashes. | |
[ | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
and issued | |
The orders fix’d on? | |
PANIA | |
170 | SARDANAPALUS |
PANIA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
A question as an answer to | |
It is a portent. What! they are dishearten’d? | |
PANIA | |
175 | Of the exulting rebels on his fall, |
Have made them — | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
We’ll find the means to rouse them. | |
PANIA | |
Might sadden even a victory. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Who can so feel it as I feel? but yet, | |
180 | Though coop’d within these walls, they are strong, and we |
Have those without will break their way through hosts, | |
To make their sovereign’s dwelling what it was – | |
A palace; not a prison, nor a fortress. | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
OFFICER | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
185 | While millions dare revolt with sword in hand! |
That’s strange. I pray thee break that loyal silence | |
Which loathes to shock its sovereign; we can hear | |
Worse than thou hast to tell. | |
PANIA | |
OFFICER | |
190 | Is thrown down by the sudden inundation |
Of the Euphrates, which now rolling, swoln | |
From the enormous mountains where it rises, | |
By the late rains of that tempestuous region, | |
O’erfloods its banks, and hath destroy’d the bulwark. | |
195 | PANIA |
For ages, ‘That the city ne’er should yield | |
To man, until the river grew its foe.’ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
How much is swept down of the wall? | |
OFFICER | |
200 | Some twenty stadii. |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Pervious to the assailants? | |
OFFICER | |
The river’s fury must impede the assault; | |
But when he shrinks into his wonted channel, | |
And may be cross’d by the accustom’d barks, | |
205 | The palace is their own. |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Though men, and gods, and elements, and omens, | |
Have risen up ’gainst one who ne’er provoked them, | |
My father’s house shall never be a cave | |
For wolves to horde and howl in. | |
PANIA | |
210 | I will proceed to the spot, and take such measures |
For the assurance of the vacant space | |
As time and means permit, | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
And bring me back, as speedily as full | |
And fair investigation may permit, | |
215 | Report of the true state of this irruption |
Of waters. | |
[ | |
MYRRHA | |
Against you. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
And may be pardon’d, since they can’t be punish’d. | |
MYRRHA | |
220 | SARDANAPALUS |
Nothing I have not told myself since midnight: | |
Despair anticipates such things. | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
All that can come, and how to meet it, our | |
225 | Resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble |
Word than this is to give it utterances | |
But what are words to us? we have well nigh done | |
With them and all things. | |
MYRRHA | |
And greatest to all mortals; crowning act | |
230 | Of all that was – or is – or is to be – |
The only thing common to all mankind, | |
So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures, | |
Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects, | |
Without one point of union save in this, | |
235 | To which we tend, for which we’re born, and thread |
The labyrinth of mystery, call’d life. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
be cheerful. |