Sar.

Even so, 270

My warlike priest, and precious prophet, and
Grateful and trusty subject: yield, I pray thee.
I would reserve thee for a fitter doom,
Rather than dip my hands in holy blood.

Bel. Thine hour is come.
Sar.
No, thine. I've lately read,
Though but a young astrologer, the stars;
And ranging round the zodiac, found thy fate
In the sign of the Scorpion, which proclaims
That thou wilt now be crushed.

Bel.

But not by thee.

[They fight; BELESES is wounded and disarmed. Sar. (raising his sword to despatch him, exclaims)— Now call upon thy planets, will they shoot From the sky to preserve their seer and credit?

280

[A party of Rebels enter and rescue BELESES. They assail the King, who in turn, is rescued by a Party of his Soldiers, who drive the Rebels off.

The villain was a prophet after all.

Upon them-ho! there-victory is ours.

[Exit in pursuit.

Myr. (to Pan.). Pursue! Why stand'st thou here, and

leavest the ranks

Of fellow-soldiers conquering without thee?

Pan. The King's command was not to quit thee.

Myr.

Think not of me-a single soldier's arm

Must not be wanting now. I ask no guard,

I need no guard: what, with a world at stake,
Keep watch upon a woman? Hence, I say,
Or thou art shamed! Nay, then, I will go forth,
A feeble female, 'midst their desperate strife,

Me!

290

And bid thee guard me there-where thou shouldst shield Thy sovereign. [Exit MYRRHA.

Pan.

Yet stay, damsel !-She's gone.
If aught of ill betide her, better I
Had lost my life. Sardanapalus holds her
Far dearer than his kingdom, yet he fights
For that too; and can I do less than he,
Who never flashed a scimitar till now?

Myrrha, return, and I obey you, though
In disobedience to the monarch.

300

[Exit PANIA.

Enter ALTADA and SFERO by an opposite door.

Myrrha !

Alt.
What, gone? yet she was here when the fight raged,
And Pania also. Can aught have befallen them?
Sfe. I saw both safe, when late the rebels fled;
They probably are but retired to make

Their way back to the harem.

If the King

Alt.
Prove victor, as it seems even now he must,
And miss his own Ionian, we are doomed

To worse than captive rebels.

Sfe.

Let us trace them :

She cannot be fled far; and, found, she makes
A richer prize to our soft sovereign

Than his recovered kingdom.

Alt.

Baal himself

Ne'er fought more fiercely to win empire, than
His silken son to save it: he defies

All augury of foes or friends; and like

The close and sultry summer's day, which bodes
A twilight tempest, bursts forth in such thunder
As sweeps the air and deluges the earth.
The man's inscrutable.

Sfe.

310

Not more than others.

320

[Exeunt.

All are the sons of circumstance: away-
Let's seek the slave out, or prepare to be
Tortured for his infatuation, and i

Condemned without a crime.

Sal.

Enter SALEMENES and Soldiers, etc.

The triumph is

Flattering: they are beaten backward from the palace,
And we have opened regular access

To the troops stationed on the other side
Euphrates, who may still be true; nay, must be,

i. Tortured because his mind is tortured.-[MS. M. erased.]

But where

When they hear of our victory.

Is the chief victor? where's the King?

Enter SARDANAPALUS, cum suis, etc., and MYRRHA.

Our numbers gather; and I've ordered onward
A cloud of Parthians, hitherto reserved,
All fresh and fiery, to be poured upon them
In their retreat, which soon will be a flight.

Sar. It is already, or at least they marched
Faster than I could follow with my Bactrians,

Who spared no speed. I am spent: give me a seat.
Sal. There stands the throne, Sire.
Sar.
For mind nor body: let me have a couch,

'Tis no place to rest on,

340

[They place a seat.

A peasant's stool, I care not what: so-now
I breathe more freely.

Sal.

This great hour has proved The brightest and most glorious of your life.

Sar. And the most tiresome. Where's my cupbearer?

Bring me some water.

Sal. (smiling).

'Tis the first time he

Ever had such an order: even I,i

Your most austere of counsellors, would now
Suggest a purpler beverage.

Sar.

Blood-doubtless.

But there's enough of that shed; as for wine,

I have learned to-night the price of the pure element:
Thrice have I drank of it, and thrice renewed,
With greater strength than the grape ever gave me,
My charge upon the rebels. Where's the soldier
Who gave me water in his helmet ? 1

i. He ever such an order

He ever had that order

1

.-[MS. M. erased.]
MS. M. erased.]

351

I. ["When the king was almost dying with thirst'.. the eunuch

One of the Guards.

Slain, Sire!

An arrow pierced his brain, while, scattering1
The last drops from his helm, he stood in act
To place it on his brows.

Slain unrewarded!

Sar.
And slain to serve my thirst: that's hard, poor slave!
Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with
Gold: all the gold of earth could ne'er repay
The pleasure of that draught; for I was parched
As I am now.

360

[They bring water-he drinks. I live again-from henceforth

The goblet I reserve for hours of love,
But war on water.

Sal.

Which girds your arm?
Sar.

And that bandage, Sire,

A scratch from brave Beleses.

ii.

Not too much of that;

Myr. Oh! he is wounded!
Sar.

And yet it feels a little stiff and painful,

Now I am cooler.

Myr.

You have bound it with

Sar. The fillet of my diadem: the first time That ornament was ever aught to me,

.i.

ere they had time

To place his helm again.—[MS. M. erased.] ii. O ye Gods! wounded.-[MS. M.]

370

Satibarzanes sought every place for water. . . . After much search he found one of those poor Caunians had about two quarts of bad water in a mean bottle, and he took it and carried it to the king. After the king had drawn it all up, the eunuch asked him, If he did not find it a disagreeable beverage? Upon which he swore by all the gods, 'That he had never drunk the most delicious wine, nor the lightest and clearest water with so much pleasure. I wish only,' continued he, 'that I could find the man who gave it thee, that I might make him a recompense. In the mean time I entreat the gods to make him happy and rich.'"-Plutarch's Artaxerxes, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 694. Poetry as well as history repeats itself. Compare the "water green which Gunga Din brought, at the risk of his own life, to fill the wounded soldier's helmet (Barrack-Room Ballads, by Rudyard Kipling, 1892, p. 25). Compare, too

In the shoulder, not the sword arm

And that's enough. I am thirsty would I had

A helm of water!'

The Deformed Transformed, part ii, sc. ii. 44, seq., vide post, p. 518.]

Save an incumbrance.

Myr. (to the Attendants). Summon speedily
A leech of the most skilful: pray, retire:
I will unbind your wound and tend it.

Sar.

For now it throbs sufficiently: but what

Do so,

Know'st thou of wounds? yet wherefore do I ask?
Know'st thou, my brother, where I lighted on

380

Of the young lion, femininely raging

(And femininely meaneth furiously,
Because all passions in excess are female,)
Against the hunter flying with her cub,

She urged on with her voice and gesture, and
Her floating hair and flashing eyes,1 the soldiers,
In the pursuit.

Sal.

Sar.

Indeed!

You see, this night

Made warriors of more than me. I paused

To look upon her, and her kindled cheek;

Her large black eyes, that flashed through her long hair
As it streamed o'er her; her blue veins that rose
Along her most transparent brow; her nostril
Dilated from its symmetry; her lips

390

Apart; her voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute pierceth through the cymbal's clash,

Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling; her
Waved arms; more dazzling with their own born whiteness
Than the steel her hand held, which she caught up
From a dead soldier's grasp;-all these things made
Her seem unto the troops a prophetess

Of victory, or Victory herself,

Come down to hail us hers.2

2. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanzas lv., lvi., Poetical Works, 1898, i. 57, 58, and note 11, pp. 91, 92.]