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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
I not render'd
[justice.

My sword? Then trust like me our sovereign's
Arb. No-I will sooner trust the stars thou prat'st
And this slight arm, and die a king at least
Of my own breath and body—so far that
None else shall chain them.

Sal. (to the Guards).

Take him not,- kill.

[of,

You hear him, and me.

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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
Hirelings, who live by lies on good men's lives.
You must have been deceived, my brother.
Sal.

Let him deliver up his weapon, and
Proclaim himself your subject by that duty,
And I will answer all.
Sar.

But no, it cannot be

First

Why, if I thought sothe Mede Arbaces —

The trusty, rough, true soldier-the best captain
Of all who discipline our nations - No,
I'll not insult him thus, to bid him render
The scimitar to me he never yielded
Unto our enemies. Chief, keep your weapon.
Sal. (delivering back the signet).

Sar.

back your signet.

Monarch, take

No, retain it;

Sire,

But use it with more moderation.
Sal.

I used it for your honour, and restore it

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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
Of the most dangerous orders of mankind.
Keep thy smooth words and juggling homilies
For those who know thee not. Thy fellow's sin
Is, at the least, a bold one, and not temper'd
By the tricks taught thee in Chaldea.
Bel.

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,
And all Chaldea's starry mysteries.

Bel. Monarch! respect them.
Sar.

Oh! for that-I love them!
I love to watch them in the deep blue vault,
And to compare them with my Myrrha's eyes;
I love to see their rays redoubled in
The tremulous silver of Euphrates' wave,
As the light breeze of midnight crisps the broad
And rolling water, sighing through the sedges
Which fringe his banks: but whether they may be
Gods, as some say, or the abodes of gods,
As others hold, or simply lamps of night,
Worlds, or the lights of worlds, I know nor care not.
There's something sweet in my uncertainty

I would not change for your Chaldean lore;
Besides, I know of these all clay can know
Of aught above it, or below it-nothing.

I see their brilliancy and feel their beauty-1
When they shine on my grave I shall know neither.
Bel. For neither, sire, say better.
Sar.
I will wait,
If it so please you, pontiff, for that knowledge.
In the mean time receive your sword, and know
That I prefer your service militant
Unto your ministry-not loving either.

["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

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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;

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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.

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Arb. But this is fill'd.
Bel.

A despised monarch.

I have still aided, cherish'd, loved, and urged you;
Was willing even to serve you, in the hope
To serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself
Seem'd to consent, and all events were friendly,
Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk
Into a shallow softness; but now, rather
Than see my country languish, I will be
Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant,
Or one or both, for sometimes both are one;
And, if I win, Arbaces is my servant.
Arb. Your servant !
Bel.

Why not? better than be slave, The pardon'd slave of she Sardanapalus !

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Oh, the souls of some men!

Arb.

Bel.

Say, we depart.

Pan.

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But

It must be obey'd:

My order is to see you Depart, and not to bear your answer.

Bel. (aside).

Ay !

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Bel. No-the queen liked no sharers of the kingNot even a husband.

S

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No; they hardly will risk that.
They mean us to die privately, but not
Within the palace or the city walls,
Where we are known, and may have partisans.
If they had meant to slay us here, we were
No longer with the living. Let us hence.

Arb. If I but thought he did not mean my life-
Bel. Fool! hence-what else should despotism

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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?
Sal. They are not there yet- -never should they
Were I well listen'd to.
[be so,

Sar.
Nay, I have listen'd
Impartially to thee why not to them?
Sal. You may know that hereafter; as it is,
I take my leave, to order forth the guard.
Sar. And you will join us at the banquet?
Sal.

Sire,

Dispense with me- I am no wassailer:
Command me in all service save the Bacchant's.
Sur. Nay, but 'tis fit to revel now and then.
Sal. And fit that some should watch for those who
Too oft. Am I permitted to depart?

[revel

Sar. Yes - Stay a moment, my good Salemenes,
My brother, my best subject, better prince
Than I am king. You should have been the monarch,
And I-I know not what, and care not; but
Think not I am insensible to all

Thine honest wisdom, and thy rough yet kind,
Though oft-reproving, sufferance of my follies.
If I have spared these men against thy counsel,
That is, their lives -it is not that I doubt
The advice was sound; but, let them live: we will not
Cavil about their lives so let them mend them.
Their banishment will leave me still sound sleep,
Which their death had not left me.

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.]

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Hard but as lofty as the rock, and free
From all the taints of common earthwhile I
Am softer clay, impregnated with flowers:
But as our mould is, must the produce be.
If I have err'd this time, 'tis on the side
Where error sits most lightly on that sense,
I know not what to call it; but it reckons
With me ofttimes for pain, and sometimes pleasure;
A spirit which seems placed about my heart
To count its throbs, not quicken them, and ask
Questions which mortal never dared to ask me,
Nor Baal, though an oracular deity -
Albeit his marble face majestical
Frowns as the shadows of the evening dim

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Beyond the palace walls to-night, but make Our feast within.

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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.

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Methinks it is the same within these walls As on the river's brink.

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Are high, and strong, and guarded. Treason has

To penetrate through many a winding way,

And massy portal; but in the pavilion
There is no bulwark.

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Nor in the fortress, nor upon the top

Of cloud-fenced Caucasus, where the eagle sits
Nested in pathless clefts, if treachery be:
Even as the arrow finds the airy king,
The steel will reach the earthly. But be calm:
The men, or innocent or guilty, are
Banish'd, and far upon their way.
Myr.

Sar. So sanguinary? Thou!
Myr.

They live, then?

I would not shrink

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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

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No matter, still 'tis fear.
I have observed your sex, once roused to wrath,
Are timidly vindictive to a pitch

Of perseverance, which I would not copy.
I thought you were exempt from this, as from
The childish helplessness of Asian women. +

Myr. My lord, I am no boaster of my love,
Nor of my attributes; I have shared your splendour,
And will partake your fortunes. You may live
To find one slave more true than subject myriads :
But this the gods avert! I am content
To be beloved on trust for what I feel,

2 ["In distant flashes {a wide-spreading?
the approaching S tempest."-MS.]

3 ["As from the gods to augur."— MS ]
4["The weaker merit of our Asian women." — MS.]

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