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;

310

Nor rise the sooner; nor forbear the goblet;

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

2. [Compare

"The fickle reek of popular breath."

350

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.

Ingratitude? 1

370

Feel who feels not

381

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.]

And thou may'st yet be glorious in thy reign,

As powerful in thy realm. Farewell! [Exit SALEMENES.
Sar. (solus).
Farewell!

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,
I know not: he hath found it, let him quell it.
Must I consumé 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,
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?

390

I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image; 400
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—
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 flowed for me, nor hath the smallest coin
Of Nineveh's vast treasures e'er been lavished
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, And mowed 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!

Sar.

Enter an ATTENDANT.

410

Slave, tell

420

The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence.
Attend. King, she is here.

MYRRHA enters.

Sar. (apart to Attendant). Away! (Addressing MYRRHA.)

Thou dost almost anticipate my heart;

Beautiful being!

It throbbed for thee, and here thou comest: let me
Deem that some unknown influence, some sweet oracle,
Communicates between us, though unseen,

In absence, and attracts us to each other.
Myr. There doth.

Sar. What is it?

Myr.

I know there doth, but not its name:

In my native land a God,
And in my heart a feeling like a God's,
Exalted; yet I own 'tis only mortal;
For what I feel is humble, and yet happy-
That is, it would be happy; but-

Sar.

430

[MYRRHA pauses. There comes

For ever something between us and what
We deem our happiness: let me remove
The barrier which that hesitating accent
Proclaims to thine, and mine is sealed.
Myr.

My Lord!

Sar. My Lord-my King-Sire-Sovereign; thus it

is

For ever thus, addressed with awe. I ne'er

Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet's
Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons

Have gorged themselves up to equality,

440

Or I have quaffed me down to their abasement.
Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names,
Lord-King-Sire-Monarch-nay, time was I prized

them;

That is, I suffered them-from slaves and nobles;
But when they falter from the lips I love,
The lips which have been pressed to mine, a chill
Comes o'er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood
Of this my station, which represses feeling

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

450