University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—The European Shore of the Propontic.
—Isaac and Alexius Comnenus.
Alexius.
But for that hair that's twisted in the grain
I had not known thee.

Comnenus.
Youth, Alexius,
Knows nought of changes; age has traced them oft,
Expects, and can expound them. You yourself
Are somewhat altered, but the few years more
Of time which I have travelled through have taught
The art to know what has been from what is,
What's like to be from both: change is youth's wonder:
Such transmutations have I seen in men
That fortune seemed a slow and steadfast power
Compared with nature.

Alexius.
There is nought you've seen
More altered than yourself.
I speak not of an outward change alone;
For you are changed in heart.

Comnenus.
Ay, hearts change too:
Mine has grown sprightly, has it not, and hard?
I ride it now with spurs; else, else, Alexius—
Well, many a sage has said the best of life
Is childhood, and I sagely say the same.
Life is a banquet where the best's first served,
And when the guest is cloyed comes oil and garlic.

Alexius.
Childhood! But later years went well, and gifts
Came with them that were better worth than joys.
Have you forgotten how it was your wont
To muse the hours away along this shore—
These very rippled sands?

Comnenus.
The sands are here,
But not the footprints. Would you trace them now?
A thousand tides and storms have dashed them out;
Winds brushed them and waves worn them; and o'er all
The heavy foot of Time, who plods the shore
Replenishing his sand-glass, trodden down
Their vestiges and mine. Look, here's a rock—
His seat or e'er he pushed it from the cliff,
And which shall now be ours; a goodly seat;
He's worn it smooth—smooth as the fair round cheek
He lies in wait for, nor has touched with care
Nor stained with tears, nor even tutored yet
To dimple into lies.

Alexius.
Look! what is here,—
Here, carved upon the rock?

Comnenus.
That know not I,
But Time has ta'en it for a poet's scrawl—
He's razed it.

Alexius.
No, not wholly; look again;
I take it for a lover's.

Comnenus.
What! there's some talk
Of balmy breath, and hearts pierced through and through
With eyes' miraculous brightness, vows ne'er broken
Until the Church had sealed them, charms loved madly
Until it be a sin to love them not,
And kisses ever sweet till innocent.
How much that should be written in the stream
Has our fond lover written in the rock,
Not knowing of its nature?

Alexius.
Hardly much;
Two words there are,—no more.

Comnenus.
And what are they?

Alexius.
“Alas, Irene!”—Why, your looks are now
Such as I once beheld them heretofore;
'Twas when our mother died;—what troubles you?

Comnenus.
Now this I hate, to stand and be deciphered,
Pored on industriously and puzzled through
Like riddles that are read o'winter's nights
When maids and boys have nought to prate on else.
Alexius, forgive me. Leave me now.
There's business waiting for us both.

Alexius.
Oh no;
I cannot leave you yet; there's yet to tell
A seven years' history since last we met.

Comnenus.
Go put it down in four and twenty books
'Cleped “the Comneniad,”—to be read at leisure.
We'll have no more of this; my youth is past
And I would not recall it.

Alexius.
Isaac, oh!
Can you stand here and say so? Can you look
On this soft-rolling, deep-embayed sea,
With yon blue beautiful ridge half-compassed round,—
Hear the low plash of wave o'erwhelming wave,
The loving lullaby of your mother Ocean,
(We, like the Cretan, are not sons of Earth,)—
See the rocks stand like nature's ruins round,
For man's were never so majestical—
The boundary forts of Earth and Ocean's empire,
The deep-scarred veterans of their countless wars,
Your native and your father's native shores—
Can you be so surrounded and speak thus!
Are they not lovely?

Comnenus.
It is not the eye
To which these things seem lovely, but the mind,
Which makes, unmakes, remodels, or rejects.
When I was in the country whence you come,
I oft would watch the sun go down; and there
He sets with such refulgency of red,
That the whole east, with the reflected glow,
Is crimsoned as it may be here at dawn:
I would the life of man did so decline,
But that still darkens to the cloudy close.

Alexius.
There is an after-dawn.

Comnenus.
That way I look,
Or I have used to look, and that way turned
I turned my back upon the past. With you
It faces me again.

Alexius.
We'll let it rest.
How is our cousin Anna?

Comnenus.
Well, quite well:
The natural infirmities of youth,
Sadness and softness, hopefulness, wishfulness,
All pangs for which we do not see good cause
Let's take no count of. If at ninety years
A man shall die, accusing no disease,
Only by reason of the ninety years,
So shall a maiden languish at nineteen
Only by reason of the time and state.
Enough for nature if she keep us sound
In the slow tide and tenor of our lives,
Betwixt youth's flushings and the lapse of age.

Alexius.
A rumour went our gentle cousin's charms
Were to have filled for you this gap of life.
If she grew up with what I call to mind
Of gifts that graced her childhood, few like her!

Comnenus.
I own it, but I own it unenslaved.
I scarcely care for beauty.

Alexius.
Have you nought
But that to care for? May we not say love?

Comnenus.
That is a point to which most men would speak
In words of dubious import, to imply
That they are loved, but very loth to tell it.
I answer, Yes, she loves me.

Alexius.
And you her?

Comnenus.
Ay;—with a difference, though: her love's untold,
Though I am not so young in the world to doubt it;
I tell her that I love her every day.
I have designed her for a happier fate,
And she shall learn to love herself, not me;
Soon taught, soon taught.

Alexius.
And wherefore not love both?

Comnenus.
Because she never can be true to both.
Hast no talk meeter for a battle's eve?

Alexius.
All is arranged; there's nought upon my mind.

Comnenus.
Nor need there be; but there is much on mine,—
A weight of foregone years crowding along
That seem pressed back by some approaching close:
We'll talk of times to come to-morrow night.
What time the watch is set I take me hence:
I sleep beside Blachernæ.

Alexius.
Do you so?
Is't not too near the walls?

Comnenus.
I go alone.
One man at dusk will scarce be seen.

Alexius.
Alone?
And take you not a guard then?

Comnenus.
Not so far.
I have a watchful eye to yon monks' kennel;
For, as I said, if aught be stirring there
I'll seize upon the post by break of day.

Alexius.
You fear not for our sister?

Comnenus.
But thus far:
I think when Pagans such as we make war,
The safeguard of the Church is not so good
But that my own is better.

Alexius.
Like enough.
My way is with you half the distance.

Comnenus.
Well.
Macrinus then shall lead; we'll play the spy.
Let's to his tent; there must be orders given;
My armour too is there; ere all is done
Dusk will be well-nigh here and we'll set forth.