320 | Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother? |
SALEMENES | |
If need be, wilt thou wear them? | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves | |
Will not be ruled with less, I’ll use the sword | |
325 | Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff. |
SALEMENES | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Of whom our captives often sing, related | |
The same of their chief hero, Hercules, | |
330 | Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest |
The populace of all the nations seize | |
Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns. | |
SALEMENES | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat; | |
335 | 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 | |
For all the popular breath that e’er divided | |
340 | A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues |
Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding, | |
That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread | |
Their noisome clamour? | |
SALEMENES | |
As such their hearts are something. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
345 | 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, | |
350 | 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: | |
355 | 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, | |
I let them pass their days as best might suit them, | |
360 | Passing my own as suited me. |
SALEMENES | |
Short of the duties of a king; and therefore | |
They say thou art unfit to be a monarch. | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
To be aught save a monarch; else for me | |
365 | The meanest Mede might be the king instead. |
SALEMENES | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Few questions, and I’m not of curious nature. | |
Take the fit steps; and, since necessity | |
370 | 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 | |
375 | To one wide desert chase of brutes, who |
But | |
What | |
They yet may find me – shall defy their wish | |
To speak it worse; and let them thank themselves. | |
380 | SALEMENES |
SARDANAPALUS | |
Ingratitude? | |
SALEMENES | |
With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy | |
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee, | |
385 | And thou may’st yet be glorious in thy reign, |
As powerful in thy realm. Farewell! | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
He’s gone; and on his finger bears my signet, | |
Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern | |
As I am heedless; and the slaves deserve | |
To feel a master. What may be the danger, | |
390 | I know not: he hath found it, let him quell it. |
Must I consume my life – this little life – | |
In guarding against all may make it less? | |
It is not worth so much! It were to die | |
Before my hour, to live in dread of death, | |
395 | Tracing revolt; suspecting all about me, |
Because they are near; and all who are remote, | |
Because they are far. But if it should be so — | |
If they should sweep me off from earth and empire, | |
Why, what is earth or empire of the earth? | |
400 | I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image; |
To die is no less natural than those | |
Acts of this clay! ’Tis true I have not shed | |
Blood as I might have done in oceans, till | |
My name became the synonyme of death – | |
405 | A terror and a trophy. But for this |
I feel no penitence; my life is love: | |
If I must shed blood, it shall be by force. | |
Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein | |
Hath flow’d for me, nor hath the smallest coin | |
410 | Of Nineveh’s vast treasures e’er been lavish’d |
On objects which could cost her sons a tear: | |
If then they hate me, ’tis because I hate not: | |
If they rebel, ’tis because I oppress not. | |
Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres, | |
415 | And mowd down like the grass, else all we reap |
Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest | |
Of discontents infecting the fair soil, | |
Making a desert of fertility. – | |
I’ll think no more. — Within there, ho! | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
420 | The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence. |
ATTENDANT | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
[Addressing | |
Thou dost almost anticipate my heart; | |
It throbb’d for thee, and here thou comest: let me | |
Deem that some unknown influence, some sweet oracle, | |
425 | Communicates between us, though unseen, |
In absence, and attracts us to each other. | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
What is it? | |
MYRRHA | |
And in my heart a feeling like a God’s, | |
430 | Exalted; yet I own ’tis only mortal; |
For what I feel is humble, and yet happy – | |
That is, it would be happy; but — | |
[ | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
For ever something between us and what | |
We deem our happiness: let me remove | |
435 | The barrier which that hesitating accent |
Proclaims to thine, and mine is seal’d. | |
MYRRHA | |
SARDANAPALUS | |
thus it is – | |
For ever thus, address’d with awe. I ne’er | |
Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet’s | |
440 | Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons |
Have gorged themselves up to equality, | |
Or I have quaff’d me down to their abasement. | |
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names, | |
Lord – king – sire – monarch – nay, time was I prized them; | |
445 | That is, I suffer’d them – from slaves and nobles; |
But when they falter from the lips I love, | |
The lips which have been press’d to mine, a chill | |
Comes o’er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood | |
Of this my station, which represses feeling | |
450 | In those for whom I have felt most, and makes me |
Wish that I could lay down the dull tiara, | |
And share a cottage on the Caucasus | |
With thee, and wear no crowns but those of flowers. |