Sal. A worthy moral, and a wise inscription,
For a king to put up before his subjects!

in Arrian's time, bore the character of greatness, which the Assyrians appear singularly to have affected in works of the kind. A monument representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, interpreted thus: Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play; all other human joys are not worth a fillip.' Supposing this version nearly exact (for Arrian says it was not quite so), whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so distant from his capital, and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy deserts and lofty mountains, and, still more, how 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 ended 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."-MITFORD's Greece, 1820, ix. 311-313, and note 1.

[The story of the sepulchral monument with its cynical inscription rests on the authority of Aristobulus, who served under Alexander, and wrote his history. The passage is quoted by Strabo (lib. xiv. ed. 1808, p. 958), and as follows by Athenæus (lib. xii. cap. 40) in the Deipnosophista: "And Aristobulus says, 'In Anchiale, which was built by Sardanapalus, did Alexander, when he was on his expedition against the Persians, pitch his camp. And at no great distance was the monument of Sardanapalus, on which there is a marble figure putting together the fingers of its right hand, as if it were giving a fillip. And there was on it the following inscription in Assyrian characters :—

'Sardanapalus

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,

In one day built Anchiale and Tarsus:
Eat, drink, and love, the rest's not worth e'en this.'

By 'this' meaning the fillip he was giving with his fingers."

We may conjecture," says Canon Rawlinson, "that the monument was in reality a stele containing the king [Sennacherib] in an arched frame, with the right hand raised above the left, which is the ordinary attitude, and an inscription commemorating the occasion of its erection" [the conquest of Cilicia and settlement of Tarsus].-The Five Great Monarchies, etc., 1871, ii. 216.]

Sar. Oh, thou wouldst have me doubtless set up

edicts

"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.

1

260

In dust

And death, where they are neither Gods nor men.
Talk not of such to me! the worms are Gods; 1
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.

Sal.

Alas!

The doom of Nineveh is sealed.-Woe-woe
To the unrivalled city!

Sar.

What dost dread?

Sal. Thou art guarded by thy foes: in a few hours The tempest may break out which overwhelms thee, And thine and mine; and in another day

What is shall be the past of Belus' race.

Sar. What must we dread?

Sal.

Ambitious treachery,

Which has environed thee with snares; but yet

There is resource: empower me with thy signet

270

280

1. [Compare "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots."-Hamlet, act iv. sc. 3, lines 21-23.]

To quell the machinations, and I lay
The heads of thy chief foes before thy feet.
Sar. The heads-how many?
Sal.

When even thine own's in peril?

Must I stay to number

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.

291

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.

300

[Gives the signet.

I have one more request.

That thou this night forbear the banquet

In the pavilion over the Euphrates.

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;

310

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, 'tis long since I've used them,

Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother? 320 Sal. Is this a time for such fantastic trifling ?—

If need be, wilt thou wear them?

Will I not?

Sar.
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 turned into a distaff.

Sal. They say thy Sceptre's turned to that already. Sar. That's false! but let them say so: the old Greeks, Of whom our captives often sing, related The same of their chief hero, Hercules,

Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest
The populace of all the nations seize

330

No;

Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.
Sal. They did not speak thus of thy fathers.
Sar.
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

For all the popular breath1 that e'er divided

A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues 2 340 Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding,

That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread

Their noisome clamour?

Sal.

You have said they are men;

As such their hearts are something.

Sar.

So my dogs' are;

And better, as more faithful:-but, proceed;
Thou hast my signet :-since they are tumultuous,
Let them be tempered, 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

1. [Compare

"The fickle reek of popular breath."

350

2. [Compare

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxi, line 2.]

"I have not flattered its rank breath."

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza cxiii, line 2.

Compare, too, Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act iii. sc. 1, lines 66, 67.]

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,

I let them pass their days as best might suit them,
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.-Unhappily, I am unfit
To be aught save a monarch; else for me

The meanest Mede might be the king instead.

360

Sal. There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so. Sar. What mean'st thou !-'tis 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?
Sar.

370

Feel! who feels not

381

Ingratitude? 1
Sal.
I will not pause to answer
With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy
Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee,

1. [" Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakespeare says otherwise. At least, I am so much more accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the twenty-four hours, so could judge."—Extracts from a Diary, January 19, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 177.]