University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

—Hannibal's Camp at Zama.
Enter Hannibal, Maharbal, and Zeba.
Mah.
The more fool he, for sparing thee!

Han.
For that
I owe him thanks—and thee, for thy brave service.
My heart could scarce have spared my noble Zeba,
Nor could the cause that's dearest to my heart.
What is he like? Couldst thou divine if most
His soldiers love or fear him?

Zeba.
They, methought,
Where'er he passed amongst them, heard his words,
And did his bidding, with a stern contentment.
We worship thee—we are thy slaves, thy children!
To them he seems an honoured elder brother.

Han.
How deals he with the king?

Zeba.
With his cold smile
He charms him, as the Psylli charm the snake,
And the fierce king's his servant. Ask no more—
I hate him! For he bears the evil eye,
And when its blue light dwelt on me I shuddered.
He spared my life, but none the less I hate him,
For he will do thee mischief.

[Exit.
Mah.
Thy new rival
Puts a bold face upon it.

Han.
He has clenched,
By that composed and firm self-confidence,
A resolution I have mused upon—
I mean to meet him first in conference,
Ere we join battle.

Mah.
What's this jest?

Han.
'Tis none.

Mah.
Thou seek a conference with Scipio! Thou
That hast ne'er met a Roman general yet,
But 'twas to send him routed from thee! Thou,
In the gods' name, to what end?

Han.
To offer peace.

Mah.
I'll never wonder more. Were it not well
To make a comfortable compact next,
To marry Scipio's sister?

Han.
Calm thyself!—
I, if I fail, lose Carthage; he will lose
Only his single army and himself.

Mah.
And Rome besides!

Han.
I hope so, in the end.
But Carthage, if I fall, falls in the hour.
'Tis better I should offer peace to-day,
With an unbroken army, than to-morrow
Beg for it, as perhaps I may, with none.

Mah.
Thou beg for peace! Thou doubt of victory!
Go, ask those long-haired giants, or those fellows
In white and scarlet yonder! By my soul,
I do not know thee, Hannibal, to-day!
Peace! Offer peace! What, fold our arms at last,
And stare across the sea, whilst smiling Rome
Plants, sows, and reaps, on our old battle-fields!
For how long, pray thee?

Han.
Till the true hour strike!
Let children find time slow; to a man's faith
The future is the present. Peace no more
Divides us from our rival than yon sea does,
Which with full-swelling sails we o'erstep, when
The winds call, and our armaments are ready.
Why, what is peace to the true heart of hate,
Save leisure time to sharpen a new sword?

Mah.
Why doubt of victory?

Han.
I had not doubted,
Had it been possible to put off battle;
But since it is not, and since Masanissa—
Thou hast heard Zeba's tale as well as I—
To my three thousand of Numidian horse,
Opposes twice three thousand of his own—

Mah.
The villains! They are welcome to my best,
Though they were twice as many!

Han.
That I doubt not.
Thou hast heard, too, he brings six thousand foot.
Well, then, since I, with all these untried levies,
And fresh-caught elephants trained on the instant,
That Carthage in her haste has heaped together,
Am wanting still in cavalry—since thus,
Scipio, with Masanissa on his side,
With my own weapons fights me—I may choose
To pause before I risk against such odds
My country, whose whole self hangs in the balance,
As it hath ever hung, when once a foe
Hath touched her soil.

Mah.
Oh, I vow to the gods!
'Tis Carthage, 'tis herself, I execrate.
But for her folly, her besotted folly,
In so neglecting her defence at home,
Whilst yet the war was distant from her gates,
Thou hadst stayed there, and Scipio ne'er been here.
But so it is, so evermore will be!
Still busy at their paltry money-getting,
Bargaining for their gold trash from the south,
Their shining pebbles, and their elephant-tusks,
Their ostrich-plumes, and grinning Ethiop slaves,
And what not else—or holding jubilee
O'er their Byzacean vintages and harvests—
Their stupid citizens are well content
That all their fighting should be done for them,
By better men than they, whilst, clothed in purple,
They feast and dance, till lo! the conqueror's on them!

Han.
I cannot help it. Such as Carthage is,
I must at present be content to take her.
Haply, I yet may find some time to mend her.

Mah.
I will not ask what terms thou mean'st to offer,
Lest I should choke to hear them.

Han.
Be content;
I shall but offer peace. Let Scipio pause,
Ere he rejects the gift. If he rejects it—
Why, then, let's blow the trumpets, and our hearts
Rush to the revel with the wonted joy.

Mah.
I have no more to say.

[Exit.
Enter Silanus.
Han.
What, thou, Silanus?
Thou find'st me envying Scipio.

Sil.
Scipio's happy.
Why dost thou envy him?

Han.
For having that
Which I have lacked, with all my sounding triumphs—
An army of true brothers, one with him,
In language, race, and hope.

Sil.
Thine army loves thee.
Fast as thy thousands perished, year by year,
Fresh levies flocked, wild from their woods and deserts,
To learn the new religion.

Han.
It loves me.
Where'er I call, they follow. Did I bid them
March to the siege of Carthage, they would fly
As to the sack of Rome. It loves me only—
They love in him their country and their cause.
I have shaken Rome, yet has she stood, and stands,
Not by the energy of single genius,
But by th'accumulated wills of all,
And by the pride her very name still breathes
Into the meanest of her citizens.
The vanquished general that has done his best,
Comes back to Rome to take her thanks for it;
But Carthage pays her thanks in her own way.
Hasdrubal-Gisco wanders now in exile,
Because he has no heart for crucifixion.

Sil.
There have been men that have deserved it less.

Han.
Carthage is fainting, but the soul of Rome,
More iron yet than iron, tried in a furnace
Of seven-fold heated fury, glowed, but bent not.

Sil.
You are of Asia, and of Asia still,
Coloured by cruel Afric's tints of fire,
Will be the fashion of your destinies—
Like a grand summer for a space to reign,
Then roll in thunder from the world away.
From Asia come the base and the sublime,
Whose clashing contrasts, of your country's story
Make the rich poem which mankind will read
Admiring, when your race has passed from earth,
And all you did is lost. You rest on Afric,
Like a great ship on ocean—the winds blow,
And the proud fabric, shattered into fragments,
Vanishes, leaving on the waves no trace.
You are th'enchanter, whose all-potent wand
Preserves the splendid vision to the world;
But let your wand be broken, and perchance
The hand that dropped your dazzling empire here
May snatch it up, with all its marble pride
Of town and temple, gaudy markets, gold
Of summer harvests, luxury of groves
And gardens, pomp of ships, and flashing arms—
To crush it like a child's toy, fling away
The giant ruins where no hand shall find them!

Han.
I yet may dig my state a deep foundation,
I yet may find for her a strength more real
Than the enchanter's wand.

Sil.
'Tis Europe, Europe—
Proclaimed the heir of all the rich-souled East—
Absorbs the past and claims the future.

Han.
Let her!
And let me struggle against prophecy!
I will not be disheartened for my Carthage.
Oh, she, methinks, will turn to bay 'gainst fate!
Nor shall she, whilst I live, send forth her sons,
In that sweet secret island of the west,
Whose key she guards, to hide their vanquish'd heads.
And if she rise again—as once she rose—
Thrust back th'aggressor, chased him to his gates,
And almost pulled to earth his towering pride,
Buried almost, in its tremendous ruins,
That European culture you admire—
'Twill not again be almost.

Sil.
You alone
Can double that strange feat. You dead, how soon
Will the gods send your twin?

Han.
Let me but first
Do all that lies in one man's power, to make
My country lean no longer on one man,
But on the zeal of all!

Sil.
Then does there wait you—
And heartily I wish you luck therein—
A struggle with an enemy as stubborn
As Rome herself—such a charm'd strength resides
In blind and greedy imbecility.
But for your near concern in it, my mind
Could study, not without a curious pleasure,
The problem of such characters as those
You fight against at home.

Han.
I grudge it not to you.

Sil.
Their fellows' welfare—honour—justice—these,
I comprehend, are words that mean to them
No more than might a Sophocleän chorus
To any savage of the Bruttian hills;
But to forego the vanity of country,
That pride in her success's showiness,
Which selfishness itself might love the taste of—
To sell the splendour of their city's crown,
The world's submission, envy, praise, and wonder,
In daily barter for their petty spite,
Their petty greed—nay, e'en their noontide sleep—
That is a bargain which perplexes all
My powers of calculation to conceive of.

Han.
I leave you to sum up the loss and gain;
Long have I ceased to study that hard page.

[Exit.
Sil.
Scipio and Hannibal brought face to face!
Here stands war's passionate heroic poem;
There, its cold logic, pitiless as fate!

[Exit.