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Different Voices. Ay!-Ay!

Doge. You shall not

Stir in my train, at least. I enter'd here
As sovereign-I go out as citizen,
By the same portals, but as citizen.
All these vain ceremonies are base insults,
Which only ulcerate the heart the more,
Applying poisons there as antidotes.
Pomp is for princes-I am none! That's
false,

I am, but only to these gates.-Ah!
Lored. Hark!

[The great bell of St. Mark's tolls. Barb. The bell!

Chief of the Ten. St. Mark's, which tolls for the election

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[The Doge takes a goblet from the
hand of Loredano.

Doge. I take yours, Loredano, from the
hand

Most fit for such an hour as this.

Lored. Why so?

Marina.

My God! My God!

Barb. (to Lored.) Behold! your work's
completed!

Chief of the Ten. Is there then
No aid? Call in assistance!

Attendant. 'Tis all over.

Chief of the Ten. If it be so, at least his
obsequies

Shall be such as befits his name and nation,
His rank and his devotion to the duties
Of the realm, while his age permitted him
To do himself and them full justice.
Brethren,

Say, shall it not be so?

Barb. He has not had
The misery to die a subject where
He reign'd: then let his funeral rites be
princely.

Chief of the Ten. We are agreed, then?
All, except Loredano, answer

Yes.

Chief of the Ten. Heaven's peace be with him!

Marina. Signors, your pardon: this is mockery.

Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which,

A moment since, while yet it had a soul (A soul by whom you have increased your empire,

And made your power as proud as was his glory),

You banish'd from his palace, and tore down From his high place with such relentless coldness;

And now, when he can neither know these honours,

Nor would accept them if he could, you,
signors,

Purpose, with idle and superfluous pomp,
To make a pageant over what you trampled.
A princely funeral will be your reproach,

Doge. 'Tis said that our Venetian And not his honour. crystal has

Such pure antipathy to poisons, as

To burst if aught of venom touches it.
You bore this goblet, and it is not broken.
Lored. Well, sir!

Doge. Then it is false, or you are true.
For my own part, I credit neither; 'tis
An idle legend.

.

Marina. You talk wildly, and

Had better now be seated, nor as yet Depart. Ah! now you look as look'd my husband!

Barb. He sinks!-support him!—quick— a chair-support him!

Chief of the Ten. Lady, we revoke not Our purposes so readily.

Marina. I know it,

As far as touches torturing the living.
I thought the dead had been beyond even

you,

Though (some, no doubt,) consign'd to powers which may

Resemble that you exercise on earth. Leave him to me; you would have done 80 for

His dregs of life, which you have kindly shorten'd:

It is my last of duties, and may prove

Doge. The bell tolls on!-let's hence-A dreary comfort in my desolation.

my brain's on fire!

Barb. I do beseech you, lean upon us!
Doge. No!

A sovereign should die standing. My poor
boy!

Off with your arms!-That bell!

[The Doge drops down and dies.

Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead,
And the apparel of the grave.

Chief of the Ten. Do you
Pretend still to this office?
Marina. I do, signor.

Though his possessions have been all

consumed

as one day,

In the state's service, I have still my dowry, | Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done!
Which shall be consecrated to his rites,
And those of [She stops with agitation.
Chief of the Ten. Best retain it for your
children.

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I trust, Heaven's will be done too!
Chief of the Ten. Know you, lady,
To whom ye speak, and perils of such specch?
Marina. I know the former better than
yourselves;

The latter-like yourselves; and can face both.

Wish you more funerals?

Barb. Heed not her rash words; Her circumstances must excuse her bearing. Chief of the Ten. We will not note them down.

Barb. (turning to Loredano, who is writing upon his tablets) What art thou writing,

With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets?

Lored. (pointing to the Doge's body) That he has paid me! Chief of the Ten. owe you?

What debt did he

Lored. A long and just one; Nature's debt and mine. [Curtain falls.

SARDANAPALUS,

A TRAGEDY.

TO

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GÖTHE.

A stranger presumes to offer the homage of a literary vassal to his liege-lord, the first of existing writers, who has created the literature of his own country and illustrated that of Europe. The unworthy production which the author ventures to inscribe to him is entitled SARDANAPALUS.

PREFACE.

For the historical foundation of the compositions in question, the reader is referred to the Notes.

The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach the unities; conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But "Nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however With regard to my own private feelings, feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules as it seems that they are to stand for no-whatsoever. Where he has failed, the faithing, I shall say nothing. lure is in the architect,--and not in the art.

IN publishing the Tragedies of Sardanapalus, and of The Two Foscari, I have only to repeat that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage.

On the attempt made by the Managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed.

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To have reach'd an empire; to an empire | 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

born,

theirs ;

Till then, let each be mistress of her time,
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha, choose,
Wilt thou along with them or me?
Myrrha. My lord-

He will bequeath none; nothing but a name,
Which his sons will not prize in heritage:
Yet, not all lost, even yet he may redeem
His sloth and shame, by only being that
Which he should be, as easily as the thing
He should not be and is. Were it less toil
To sway his nations than consume his life?
To head an army than to rule a harem?
He sweats in palling pleasures,dulls his soul, | It is the curse of kings to be so answered.
And saps his goodly strength, in toils which | Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine—

yield not Health like the chase, nor glory like the

war

He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound [Sound of soft music heard from within. To ronse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute,

The lyre, the timbrel; the lascivious
tinklings

Of lulling instruments, the softening voices
Of women, and of beings less than women,
Must chime in to the echo of his revel,
While the great king of all we know of
earth

Lolls crown'd with roses, and his diadem
Lies negligently by to be caught up
By the first manly hand which dares to
snatch it.

Lo, where they come! already I perceive
The reeking odours of the perfumed trains,
And see the bright gems of the glittering
girls,

Who are his comrades and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garb'd, and scarce less female,
The grandson of Semiramis, the man-queen.
He comes! Shall I await him? yes, and
front him,

And tell him what all good men tell each
other,

Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves,

Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.

1

Sard. My lord! my life, why answerest thou so coldly?

Accompany our guests, or charm away
say, wouldst thou
The moments from me?
Myrrha. The king's choice is mine.
Sard. I pray thee say not so: my
chiefest joy

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

SCENE II.—Enter SARDANAPALUS effeminate-
ly dressed, his Head crowned with Flow-I
ers, and his Robe negligently flowing,
attended by a Train of Women and young
Slaves.

Sardanapalus (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 galley be prepared. There is
A cooling breeze which crisps the broad
clear river:

We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign

others.

Myrrha, I would remain: I have no happiness

Save in beholding thine; yet—

Sard. Yet, what YET?

Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.
Myrrha. 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.
Sard. Who answers! How now, brother?
And your most faithful vassal, royal lord.
Sal. The queen's brother,
Sard. (addressing his train) As I have

Till midnight, when again we pray your
said, let all dispose their hours
presence. [The court retiring.
(To Myrrha, who is going.) Myrrha! I
thought thou wouldst remain.
Myrrha. Great king,
Thou didst not say so.

Sard. But thou lookedst it;
know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.
Myrrha. Sire! your brother-

Sal. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia!
How darest thou name me and not blush?
Sard. Not blush!

Thou hast no more eyes than heart to
make her crimson
Like to the dying day on Caucasus,
Where sunset tints the snow with rosy
shadows,

And then reproach her with thine own
Which will not see it. What, in tears, my
cold blindness,
Myrrha?

Sal.

To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus, | And

Let them flow on; she weeps for more than one,

is herself the cause of bitterer tears.

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Thinkst 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

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Beyond his palace-walls, or if he stirs Beyond them, 'tis 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.

Sard. I understand thee-thou wouldst

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