Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves! Led by the monarch subject to his slaves. (1)

SCENE II.

Enter SARDANAPALUS effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of

Women and young Slaves.

Sar. (speaking to some of his attendants.) Let the pavilion over the Euphrates

Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth
For an especial banquet; at the hour

Of midnight we will sup there: see nought wanting,
And bid the gallery be prepared. There is

A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear river:
We will embark anon. Fair nymphs! who deign
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus,
We 'll meet again in that the sweetest hour,
When we shall gather like the stars above us,
And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs;
Till then, let each be mistress of her time,
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha, (2) choose,
Wilt thou along with them or me?

Myr.

[thou

Is to contribute to thine every wish.
I do not dare to breathe my own desire,
Lest it should clash with thine; for thou art still
Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for others.
Myr. I would remain: I have no happiness
Save in beholding thine; (4) yet— —

Sar.

Yet! what YET?

Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier

Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.
Myr. I think the present is the wonted hour
Of council; it were better I retire.

Sal. (comes forward and says,) The Ionian slave says well: let her retire.

Sar. Who answers? How now, brother? Sal. The queen's brother, And your most faithful vassal, royal lord. Sar. (addressing his train.) As I have said, let all dispose their hours

Till midnight, when again we pray your presence. [The court retiring.

(To MYRRHA, (5) who is going.) Myrrha! I thought thou wouldst remain.

(1) "Salemenes is the direct opposite to sclfishness; and the character, though slightly sketched, displays little less ability than that of Sardanapalus. He is a stern, loyal, plain-spoken soldier and subject; clear-sighted, just and honourable in his ultimate views, though not more punctilious about the means of obtaining them than might be expected from a respectable satrap of ancient Nineveh, or a respectable vizier of the modern Turkish empire. To his king, in spite of personal neglect and family injuries, he is, throughout, pertinaciously attached and punctiliously faithful. To the king's rebels he is inclined to be severe, bloody, and even treacherous; an imperfection, however, in his character, to want which would, in his situation, be almost unnatural, and which is skilfully introduced as a contrast to the instinctive perception of virtue and honour which flashes out from the indolence of his master. Of the satrap, however, the faults as well as the virtues are alike the offspring of disinterested loyalty and patriotism. It is for his country and king that he is patient of injury; for them he is valiant; for them cruel. He has no ambition of personal power, no thirst of individual fame. In battle and in victory, Assyria!' is his only war-ery. When he sends off the queen and princes, he is less anxious for his nephews and sister than for the preservation of the line of Nimrod; and, in his last moments, it is the supposed flight of his sovereign which alone distresses and overcomes him." Heber.-E.

(2) "The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Boeotians, who, together with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would make nearly the whole of the Greek nation; and among the orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks." Mitford's Greece.

[crimson

(5) "The chief charm and vivifying angel of the piece is Myrrha, the Greek slave of Sardanapalus-a beautiful, heroic, devoted, and etherial being-in love with the generous and infatuated monarch-ashamed of loving a barbarian-and using all her influence over him to ennoble as well as to adorn his existence, and to arm him against the terrors of its close. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart-her heroism of the affections. If the part she takes in the dialogue be sometimes too subdued and submissive for the lofty daring of her character, it is still such as might become a Greek slave-a lovely Ionian girl, in whom the love of liberty and the scorn of death were tempered by the consciousness of what she regarded as a degrading passion, and an inward sense of fitness and decorum with reference to her condition." Jeffrey.

(4)That the character of Myrrha was drawn from life, and that the Guiccioli was the model, I have no doubt. He had with him the very being in person whom he has depicted in the drama, of dispositions and endowments greatly similar, and in circumstances in which she could not but feel as Myrrha is supposed to have felt: and it must be admitted that he has applied the good fortune of that incident to a beautiful purpose. This, however, is not all that the tragedy possesses of the author. The character of Zarina is, perhaps, even still more strikingly drawn from life; there are many touches in the scene with her which he could not have imagined without thinking of his own domestic disasters." Galt.

(5) In the original draught, "Byblis."-E. (6) In the MS.

I know each glance of those deep Greek-soul'd eyes.”—E.

Sal. Myr.

Would thou couldst!

My sovereign! I pray, and thou, too, prince! permit my absence. Sar. Since it must be so, and this churl has check'd Thy gentle spirit, go; but recollect

Not know the word! Never was word yet rung so in my ears— Worse than the rabble's shout, or splitting trumpet: I've heard thy sister talk of nothing else.

Sal. To change the irksome theme, then, hear of Sar. From whom? [vice.

Sal. Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen Unto the echoes of the nation's voice.

Sar. Come, I'm indulgent, as thou knowest; patient,

Sar.

Sal.

Say on.

:

That we must forthwith meet: I had rather lose
An empire than thy presence.
Sal.

It may be,
Thou wilt lose both, and both for ever!
Sar.

Sar.

Brother,

Am I then?

I can at least command myself, who listen To language such as this: yet urge me not Beyond my easy nature.

Sal.

"T is beyond

That easy, far too easy, idle nature,

In their eyes a nothing; but

A king. And what

So thou art.
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice-
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-
The negligence-the apathy-the evils

Of sensual sloth-produce ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
The false and fond examples of thy lusts
Corrupt no less than they oppress, and sap
In the same moment all thy pageant power
And those who should sustain it; so that whether
A foreign foe invade, or civil broil

Distract within, both will alike prove fatal:
The first thy subjects have no heart to conquer;
The last they rather would assist than vanquish.
Sar. Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece of
the people?

Sal. Forgiveness of the queen, my sister's wrongs;
A natural love unto my infant nephews;
Faith to the king, a faith he may need shortly,
In more than words; respect for Nimrod's line;
Also, another thing thou knowest not.

Sai.

Of the first
More than is glorious; of the last, far less
Than the king recks of.
Sar.
Whose then is the crime,
But the false satraps', who provide no better?
Sal. And somewhat in the monarch who ne'er
looks

Beyond his palace walls; or if he stirs
Beyond them, 't is but to some mountain palace,
Till summer heats wear down. O glorious Baal!
Who built up this vast empire, and wert made
A god, or at the least shinest like a god
Through the long centuries of thy renown,
This, thy presumed descendant, ne'er beheld
As king the kingdoms thou didst leave as hero,
Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, and peril!
For what? to furnish imposts for a revel,
Or multiplied extortions for a minion.

Sar. I understand thee-thou wouldst have me go
Forth as a conqueror. By all the stars
Which the Chaldeans read-the restless slaves (1)
Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes,
And lead them forth to glory.

Left she behind in India to the vultures?

Sal. Our annals say not. Sar. Then I will say for themThat she had better woven within her palace Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens, And wolves, and men-the fiercest of the three, Her myriads of fond subjects. Is this glory? Then let me live in ignominy ever.

Sal. All warlike spirits have not the same fate. Semiramis, the glorious parent of

A hundred kings, although she fail'd in India,
Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm
Which she once sway'd-and thou migh'st sway.
Sar.
I sway them-
It may be, ere long,
That they will need her sword more than your
sceptre.

She but subdued them. Sal.

Sar. There was a certain Bacchus, was there not? I've heard my Greek girls speak of such-they say He was a god, that is, a Grecian god, An idol foreign to Assyria's worship, Who conquer'd this same golden realm of Ind Thou pratest of, where Semiramis was vanquish'd. Sal. I have heard of such a man; and thou perThat he is deem'd a god for what he did. [ceivest Sar. And in his godship I will honour him— Not much as man. What, ho! my cupbearer! Sal. What means the king? Sar.

To worship your new god And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I say.

A fitting one for the resumption of
Thy yet unslept-off revels?

Re-enter Cupbearer, with wine.

Sar. (taking the cup from him.) Noble kinsman! If these barbarian Greeks of the far shores And skirts of these our realms lie not, this Bacchus Conquer'd the whole of India, did he not?

Sal. He did, and thence was deem'd a deity. (1) Sar. Not so:-of all his conquests a few columns, Which may be his, and might be mine, if 1

(1) In the MS.

"He did, and thence was deem'd a god in story."-E.

The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed,

The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke,
But here, here in this goblet, is his title
To immortality-the immortal grape
From which he first express'd the soul, and gave
To gladden that of man, as some atonement
For the victorious mischiefs he had done.
Had it not been for this, he would have been
A mortal still in name as in his grave;
And, like my ancestor Semiramis,
A sort of semi-glorious human monster.
Here's that which deified him-let it now
Humanise thee; my surly chiding brother,
Pledge me to the Greek god!

Sal.

For all thy realms,

I would not so blaspheme our country's creed.
Sar. That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero,
That he shed blood by oceans; and no god,
Because he turn'd a fruit to an enchantment,
Which cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires
The young, makes Weariness forget his toil,
And Fear her danger; opens a new world
When this, the present, palls. Well then I pledge
thee,

And him as a true man, who did his utmost
In good or evil to surprise mankind.

[Drinks.

Sal. Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour? Sar. And if I did, 't were better than a trophy, Being bought without a tear. But that is not My present purpose: since thou wilt not pledge me, Continue what thou pleasest. (To the Cupbearer).

Boy! retire. [Exit Cupbearer. Sal. I would but have recall'd thee from thy dream; Better by me awaken'd than rebellion.

Sar. Who should rebel? or why? what cause? pretext?

I am the lawful king, descended from
A race of kings who knew no predecessors.
What have I done to thee, or to the people,
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up against me?
Sal. Of what thou hast done to me, I speak not.
Sar.
But.
Thou think'st that I have wrong'd the queen: is 't
not so?

Sar.

Like a Chaldean peasant to his mate,

Ye knew nor me, nor monarchs, nor mankind.
Sal. I pray thee, change the theme: my blood
disdains

Complaint, and Salemenes' sister seeks not
Reluctant love even from Assyria's lord!
Nor would she deign to accept divided passion
With foreign strumpets and Ionian slaves.
The queen is silent.

Sar.
And why not her brother?
Sal. I only echo thee the voice of empires,
Which he who long neglects not long will govern.
Sar. The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they

murmur

Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the desert's dust by myriads,

Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges;
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids,
Or Babylonian walls.

Sal.

Yet these are trophies

More worthy of a people and their prince
Than songs, and lutes, and feasts, and concubines,
And lavish'd treasures, and condemned virtues.
Sar. Or for my trophies I have founded cities:
There's Tarsus and Anchialus, both built
In one day-what could that blood-loving beldame,
My martial grandam, chaste Semiramis,
Do more, except destroy them?
Sal.

'Tis most true; I own thy merit in those founded cities, Built for a whim, recorded with a verse Which shames both them and thee to coming ages. Sar. Shame me! By Baal, the cities, though well built,

Are not more goodly than the verse! Say what
Thou wilt 'gainst me, my mode of life or rule,
But nothing 'gainst the truth of that brief record.
Why, those few lines contain the history
Of all things human: hear-"Sardanapalus,
The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.

Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip." (1)
Sal. A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,
For a king to put up before his subjects! [edicts-
Sar. Oh! thou wouldst have me, doubtless, set up
"Obey the king-contribute to his treasure-
Recruit his phalanx-spill your blood at bidding-
Fall down and worship, or get up and toil."
Or thus "Sardanapalus on this spot
Slew fifty thousand of his enemies.
These are their sepulchres, and this his trophy."
I leave such things to conquerors; enough
For me, if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less, and glide
Ungroaning to the tomb: I take no license
Which I deny to them. We all are men.

Sal. Thy sires have been revered as gods-
Sar.

In dust
And death, where they are neither gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are gods;
At least they banqueted upon your gods,
And died for lack of farther nutriment,
Those gods were merely men; look to their issue—
I feel a thousand mortal things about me,
But nothing godlike,-unless it may be
The thing which you condemn, a disposition
To love and to be merciful, to pardon
The follies of my species, and (that's human)
To be indulgent to my own.

the inhabitants could be at once in circumstances to abandon themselves to the intemperate joys which their prince has been supposed to have recommended, is not obvious: but it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the adventurous traveller by their magnificence and elegance. Amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian government, has for so many centuries been daily spreading in the finest countries of the globe, whether more from soil and climate, or from opportunities for commerce, extraordinary means must have been found for communities to flourish there; whence it may seem that the measures of Sardanapalus were directed by juster views than have been commonly ascribed to him: but that monarch having been the last of a dynasty ende; by a revolution, obloquy on his memory would follow of course, from the policy of his successors and their partisans. The inconsistency of traditions concerning Sardanapalus is striking in Diodorus's account of him." Milford's

:

Sar. The heads-how many? Sal. Must I stay to number When even thine own 's in peril? Let me go; Give me thy signet-trust me with the rest.

Sar. I will trust no man with unlimited lives. When we take those from others, we nor know What we have taken, nor the thing we give.

Sal. Wouldst thou not take their lives who seek for thine ?

Sar. That's a hard question-But I answer, Yes. Cannot the thing be done without? Who are they Whom thou suspectest ?-Let them be arrested. Sal. I would thou wouldst not ask me; the next moment

Will send my answer through thy babbling troop
Of paramours, and thence fly o'er the palace,
Even to the city, and so baffle all.—

Trust me.

Sar. Thou knowest I have done so ever: Take thou the signet.

Sal.

Sar. Name it. Sal.

[Gives the signet.

I have one more request.—

And better, as more faithful:-but, proceed;
Thou hast my signet:-since they are tumultuous,
Let them be temper'd, yet not roughly, till
Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain,
Given or received; we have enough within us.
The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,
Not to add to each other's natural burthen
Of mortal misery, but rather lessen,
By mild reciprocal alleviation,

The fatal penalties imposed on life:

But this they know not, or they will not know.
I have, by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:
I made no wars, I added no new imposts,

I interfered not with their civic lives,

Sar. Forbear the banquet! Not for all the plotters That ever shook a kingdom! Let them come, And do their worst: I shall not blench for them; Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the goblet; Nor crown me with a single rose the less; Nor lose one joyous hour.-I fear them not.

Sal. But thou wouldst arm thee, wouldst thou not, if needful?

Sar. Perhaps. I have the goodliest armour, and A sword of such a temper, and a bow

And javelin, which might furnish Nimrod forth:
A little heavy but yet not unwieldy.

And now I think on 't, 't is long since I've used them,
Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother?
Sal. Is this a time for such fantastic trifling ?—
If need be, wilt thou wear them?

Sar.
Will I not?
Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves
Will not be ruled with less, I'll use the sword
Till they shall wish it turn'd into a distaff.

Sal. They say thy sceptre 's turn'd to that already.
Sar. That's false! but let them say so: the old
Of whom our captives often sing, related [Greeks,
The same of their chief hero, Hercules,
Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest
The populace of all the nations seize
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.
Sal. They did not speak thus of thy fathers.
Sar.

No; They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat; And never changed their chains but for their armour: Now they have peace and pastime, and the license To revel and to rail; it irks me not.

I would not give the smile of one fair girl

Passing my own as suited me.

Sal.
Thou stopp'st
Short of the duties of a king; and therefore
They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.

Sar. They lie.-'nhappily, I am unfit
To be aught save a monarch; else for me
The meanest Mede might be the king instead. [so.
Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be
Sar. What mean'st thou ?-'t is thy secret; thou
desirest

Few questions, and I'm not of curious nature.
Take the fit steps; and, since necessity
Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne'er
Was man who more desired to rule in peace
The peaceful only if they rouse me, better
They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes,
"The mighty hunter." I will turn these realms
To one wide desert chase of brutes, who were,
But would no more, by their own choice, be human.
What they have found me, they belie: that which
They yet may find me-shall defy their wish
To speak it worse; and let them thank themselves.
Sal. Then thou at last canst feel?