What is there in thee that a prince should shrink from Of open force? We dread thy treason, not [venom Thy strength: thy tooth is nought without its The serpent's, not the lion's. Cut him down. Bel. (interposing). Arbaces! are you mad? Have My sword? Then trust like me our sovereign's Sal. (to the Guards). Take him not,- kill. [of, You hear him, and me. Sal. (showing the signet). Arb. (confused). Sal. Yes! and let the king confirm it. Sur. I parted not from this for such a purpose. Sal. You parted with it for your safety-I Employ'd it for the best. Pronounce in person. Here I am but your slave-a moment past I was your representative. Sar. Your swords. Then sheathe [ARBACES and SALEMENES return their swords to the scabbards. Sal. Mine's sheathed: I pray you sheathe not yours: "Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety. Sar. A heavy one; the hilt, too, hurts my hand. (To a Guard.) Here, fellow, take thy weapon back. Well, sirs, What doth this mean? Bel. The prince must answer that. Sal. Truth upon my part, treason upon theirs. Sar. Treason -Arbaces! treachery and Beleses! That were an union I will not believe. Bel. Where is the proof? Sal. I'll answer that, if once The king demands your fellow-traitor's sword. Arb. (to Sal.). A sword which hath been drawn as oft as thine Against his foes. Sal. And now against his brother, And in an hour or so against himself. Sar. That is not possible: he dared not; noNo I'll not hear of such things. These vain bickerings Are spawn'd in courts by base intrigues, and baser Let him deliver up his weapon, and But no, it cannot be First Why, if I thought sothe Mede Arbaces — The trusty, rough, true soldier-the best captain Sar. back your signet. Monarch, take No, retain it; Sire, But use it with more moderation. I used it for your honour, and restore it Because I cannot keep it with my own. Bestow it on Arbaces. Sur. He never ask'd it. Sal. So I should: Doubt not, he will have it, Without that hollow semblance of respect. Bel. I know not what hath prejudiced the prince So strongly 'gainst two subjects, than whom none Have been more zealous for Assyria's weal. Sal. Peace, factious priest and faithless soldier! thou Unit'st in thy own person the worst vices Hear him, My liege the son of Belus! he blasphemes The worship of the land, which bows the knee Before your fathers. Sar. Oh! for that I pray you Let him have absolution. I dispense with The worship of dead men; feeling that I Am mortal, and believing that the race From whence I sprung are what I see themBel. King! do not deem so they are with the And [stars, [ashes. Sar. You shall join them there ere they will rise, If you preach farther- Why, this is rank treason. Sal. My lord! Sar. To school me in the worship of Assyria's idols! Let him be released— Give him his sword. Sal. I pray ye pause. Sar. My lord, and king, and brother, Yes, and be sermonised, And dinn'd, and deafen'd with dead men and Baal, Bel. Monarch! respect them. Oh! for that-I love them! I would not change for your Chaldean lore; I see their brilliancy and feel their beauty-1 ["I know them beautiful, and see them brilliant."-MS.] 2 [The second Act is, we think, a failure. The conspirators have a tedious dialogue, which is interrupted by Salemenes with a guard. Salemenes is followed by the king, who Sal. (aside). His lusts have made him mad. Then must I save him, Spite of himself. Sar. Please you to hear me, Satraps! And chiefly thou, my priest, because I doubt thee More than the soldier; and would doubt thee all Wert thou not half a warrior: let us part In peace-I'll not say pardon - which must be Earn'd by the guilty: this I'll not pronounce ye, Although upon this breath of mine depends Your own; and, deadlier for ye, on my fears. But fear not-for that I am soft, not fearful And so live on. Were I the thing some think me, Your heads would now be dripping the last drops Of their attainted gore from the high gates Of this our palace, into the dry dust, Their only portion of the coveted kingdom Sar. Priest keep your thanksgivings for Belus; His offspring needs none. Bel. But being innocentSar. Be silent-Guilt is loud. If ye are loyal, Ye are injured men, and should be sad, not grateful. Bel. So we should be, were justice always done By earthly power omnipotent; but innocence Must oft receive her right as a mere favour. Sar. That's a good sentence for a homily, Though not for this occasion. Prithee keep it To plead thy sovereign's cause before his people. Bel. I trust there is no cause. Sar. No cause, perhaps ; But many causers: if ye meet with such In the exercise of your inquisitive function On earth, or should you read of it in heaven In some mysterious twinkle of the stars, Which are your chronicles, I pray you note, That there are worse things betwixt earth and heaven Than him who ruleth many and slays none; Arb. Lose any thing except my own esteem. Bel. I blush that we should owe our lives to such A king of distaffs ! Arb. But no less we owe them; And I should blush far more to take the grantor's! Bel. Thou may'st endure whate'er thou wilt - the Have written otherwise. [stars Arb. Though they came down, And marshall'd me the way in all their brightness, I would not follow. Arb. But this is fill'd. A despised monarch. I have still aided, cherish'd, loved, and urged you; Why not? better than be slave, The pardon'd slave of she Sardanapalus ! Oh, the souls of some men! Arb. Bel. Say, we depart. Pan. But It must be obey'd: My order is to see you Depart, and not to bear your answer. Bel. (aside). Ay ! Bel. No-the queen liked no sharers of the kingNot even a husband. S No; they hardly will risk that. Arb. If I but thought he did not mean my life- 1 [Arbaces is a mere common-place warrior; and Beleses, on whom, we suspect, Lord Byron has bestowed more than usual pains, is a very ordinary and uninteresting villain. Sardanapalus, indeed, and Salemenes, are both made to speak of the wily Chaldean as the master-mover of the plot, as a politician in whose hands Arbaces is but a “warlike puppet;" and Diodorus Siculus has represented him, in fact, as the first instigator of Arbaces to his treason, and as making use of his priestly character, and his supposed power of foretelling future events, to inflame the ambition, to direct the measures, to sustain the hopes, and to reprove the despondency, of his comrade. But of all this nothing appears in the tragedy. Lord Byron has been so anxious to show his own contempt for the priest, that he has not even allowed him that share of cunning and evil influence which was necessary for the part which he had to fill. Instead of being the original, the restless and unceasing prompter to bold and wicked measures, we find him, on his first appearance, hanging back from the enterprise, and chilling the energy of Arbaces by an enumeration of the real or possible difficulties which might yet im Yes, As he who treads on flowers is from the adder Twined round their roots. Sar. Why, what wouldst have me do? Sal. Undo what you have done. Sar. Revoke my pardon? Sul. Replace the crown now tottering on your temples. Sor. That were tyrannical. Sul. Sar. But sure. We are so. What danger can they work upon the frontier? Sar. Sire, Dispense with me- I am no wassailer: [revel Sar. Yes - Stay a moment, my good Salemenes, Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind, pede its execution. Instead of exercising that power over the mind of his comrade which a religious impostor may well possess over better and more magnanimous souls than his own, Beleses is made to pour his predictions into incredulous ears; and Arbaces is as mere an epicurean in his creed as Sardanapatus. When we might have expected to find him gazing with hope and reverence on the star which the Chaldean points out as his natal planet, the Median warrior speaks, in the language of Mezentius, of the sword on which his confidence depends, and instead of being a tool in the hand of the pontiff, he says almost every thing which is likely to affront him. Though Beleses is introduced to us as engaged in devotion, and as a fervent worshipper of the Sun, he is nowhere made either to feel or to counterfeit that professional zeal against Sardanapalus which his open contempt of the gods would naturally call for; and no reason appears, throughout the play, why Arbaces should follow, against his own conscience and opinion, the counsels of a man of whom he speaks with dislike and disgust, and whose pretences to inspiration and sanctity he treats with unmingled ridicule. — BISHOP HEBER.] Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free Beyond the palace walls to-night, but make Our feast within. Hath heard the prayer thou wouldst not hear. The gods Are kinder to thee than thou to thyself, And flash this storm between thee and thy foes, To shield thee from them. Methinks it is the same within these walls As on the river's brink. Are high, and strong, and guarded. Treason has To penetrate through many a winding way, And massy portal; but in the pavilion Nor in the fortress, nor upon the top Of cloud-fenced Caucasus, where the eagle sits Sar. So sanguinary? Thou! They live, then? I would not shrink Sar. But not a kingly one I'll none on't; or If ever I indulge in 't, it shall be With kings Myr. - my equals. These men sought to be so. Sar. Myrrha, this is too feminine, and springs From fear No matter, still 'tis fear. Of perseverance, which I would not copy. Myr. My lord, I am no boaster of my love, 2 ["In distant flashes {a wide-spreading? 3 ["As from the gods to augur."— MS ] |