University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

Scene I.

In the background soldiers are struggling through deep snow. Behind them, men and horses lie dead.
Enter Brangonar, covered with snow.
BRANGONAR.
The elements have joined mine enemies,
And ceaseless wage a more contentious war.
To work me harm, snow, fire, and frost, and wind
Have made them friends, and have outflanked my host.
Men I can master; but untimely cold,
The freezing of the air a month too soon!
To break my spell must Nature break her law?—
My star—has that gone out? fallen from the zenith?
My star, like all that is, owes fealty
To Chance. For Chance o'errules this floundering world.
Shine out then, Star: with fulsome radiancy
Do homage to the fitful god. My turn
Will come again, when still a mightier shake
He smiling shall have giv'n his dreadful urn.
“Life is a flimsy dream, soon to be over”:
Thus in my youth dejection spake through me.
I 've lived it since, and feel that to the strong—
And never felt I this more than to-day—
Life is a nightmare, that so hems all function,
So pinions will and motion, that our aims
We clutch at dreamily. Ourselves, our tools,
Their falseness or their dullness, circumstance,
Delay, so press upon activity,
Healthiest conceptions often at their birth
Are strangled. Here I'm hindered by my means,
Their peevish poorness. Haste is now my need;
And I must chafe in leaden lumbering lateness.
My populous fields, my swarming towns call out,
Wild-clamoring through the thousand-throated voice
Of legions new, afire to be enranked.
I come, I come, young giants, and the foe
Again shall reel before our onset's storm.
Women! quicken your joyful duty's rate:
Breed me fresh soldiers faster, faster, faster.

[Exit.

Scene II.

A Street in the Capital.
Enter a number of Citizens from opposite sides.
FIRST CITIZEN,
eagerly.

The latest news—have you the latest?

SECOND CITIZEN.

The enemy yields. Our soldiers fight like lions famished. Brangonar leads them in person. This is the latest news, just brought in from the western gate by the wounded. Our great Emperor's star mounts again.

FIRST CITIZEN.

His star has been a comet to the people, shedding perpetual war upon their homes.

THIRD CITIZEN.

The wars we had before his coming: the victories since.

FOURTH CITIZEN.

And glory and a national grandeur we never had before.

FIRST CITIZEN.

And now we are to have national humiliation.

THIRD CITIZEN.

Which some of ourselves would help to deepen.

Shouts outside, then enter a young Soldier, his arm in a sling.
SOLDIER.

Victory! Victory! Their columns are broken. The Emperor is on his way to the Palace. The enemy gather in force beyond the eastern gate. This afternoon or to-morrow, he will strike them there and shatter them.

SECOND CITIZEN.

But are you sure he can do it?

SOLDIER.

Do it! What can't he do?

Exeunt.

Scene III.

A Room in the Palace.
Enter Brangonar, from the battle-field.
BRANGONAR.
One more such rout, and firm I stand; so firm,
Their utmost war will wreck themselves on me.
About the eastern gate they muster strong.
'T is my last throw. Now help me, sovereign Chance,
And I'll help thee; and skill and Chance conjoined
Dictate decrees to very Fate himself.
What if I fall?—A world falls crashing with me:
The world that I have reared holds by my will.
Have I then laid no deep foundation piles,
To live beyond my life?—Ha! it strikes deep,
That question. Principles, ideas, these are
Th' essential. Mimicries of th' unsubstantial
Are these regalities, this flimsy pomp,
These Imperialities. Too much I 've made
My strength the servant of my weaknesses.
Upon myself and for myself I 've built;
And so, out of myself I have no stay.
Myself! myself! naught but myself; and now
Myself doth taunt me, and flee from myself
I cannot. In the far dim fastnesses
Of my lone being I find but me, but me.—
Am I awaked from a transcendent dream?
What if my life were a sublime mistake?
Are power, allegiance, majesty, fulfillment,
And million-voiced acclaims no more for me?
But for the hates that bark and hiss around
I were alone.—What is to me this hate?
Men hate the good:—but many, many love them.
And some love me: too few, too few. Not so:
My soldiers love me—they are not a few.
My soldiers, my dear comrades; they are mine,
And I am theirs, and we together are
A force colossal, swift, resistless strong.
Aye wait they for me, and, my presence felt,
Their eyes flash victory.—But I am faint:
First a brief sudden sleep, my sure resource;
And then, back to my panting legions.
[He lies down and sleeps.
Enter a troop of women, all in black, some old, some middle-aged, some young, some with infants in their arms. With low, solemn voice they wail, “Give me back my husband—give me back my son—give me back my father—give me back my child—give me back my friend.” Brangonar shrieks and starts up.
Lusky! Lusky!
Enter Lusky.
I 've had a dreadful dream.
Methought I passed the gaping gates of hell.
All was one gloom immense, save spots of blood
That twinkled 'bout me. Then I heard, methought,
A wail of women-ghosts: it seemed to come
From in myself. In agony I shrieked.
And my shriek waked me.

LUSKY.
Sire, no ghosts were they,
But fleshly women here around you. Hark!

The women renew their wail,—“Give them back, give them back, from death, from death: they are dead, they are dead; and we are alone, alone!” Brangonar turns slowly round and looks at them.
BRANGONAR.
Hell-hags! breeders of demons in my brain!
Your wail infernal gendered its own hell
On me, witching with lies my slumbered sense.
Hence! What to mine are passionate women-pains?
I wail the death of ripening hopes, of plans
Earth-clasping, of Dominions, Empires, Powers.
Away, ye triflers! Go, find better use
For your thin breath than darting stings at me.
To work, as best ye can. Your friends have died,
And so shall you. To all death cometh once.
You cannot say I gave to any man
A second death. God ever gives the first,
The one, the only one: all die by him:
To-day, to-morrow, yesterday—it boots not.
[Women retire.
Such pother as men make about this death,—
Nature's strong need, divine ubiquity.
Swift Death cleanseth the earth, nourisheth life.
Birth and Death keep the world aye poised in health;
And were Death to relax his certain spring,
Great Birth would quickly fill our globe with worms,
Man the chief crawler on the wormy pile.—
Lusky, send me Borini.—Lusky!

LUSKY.
Sire—

BRANGONAR.
Borini, I would speak to him, at once.

LUSKY.
Borini, Sire—is gone.

BRANGONAR.
Gone! whither? whither?
To th' enemy? to th' enemy?

LUSKY.
Aye, Sire.

BRANGONAR.
'T is like him, Lusky; like him. Call Alardo.—
Lusky, Lusky, Alardo has not gone—
Not to our foes?

LUSKY.
He has, Sire.

BRANGONAR.
He, Alardo!
He whom I lifted, trusted, loved, enriched;
The first to leave me in my extremity!
Who trusts him now will trust a various knave.
A vice corrosive is Ingratitude:
It eats the bloom from every virtue's front.
The man, apt to a base forgetfulness,
Is stripped for any brand of infamy.
Say to the Empress, I would speak with her.—
Dost thou not hear? The Empress, the Empress.
[He goes to Lusky, who has sunk into a seat weeping, and puts his hand on Lusky's shoulder.
The Empress, Lusky.
[Lusky weeps more bitterly.
Whither? where? Speak, speak!

LUSKY.
Gone to her father, Sire.

BRANGONAR.
Gone to her father!
O Time, stand still, that all mankind may pause
To castigate this act. Gone to her father!
How rich the heart in novelties of ill.
On the long catalogue of regal crimes
This one was wanting. Gone, gone to her father!
Had cynic knave told this a month ago,
I 'd had him whipt for slander on the sex.—
Lusky, go bid the Countess bring my son.—
My son, my son, Lusky; I 'd see my son
Before I go.—What—Lusky—What—no, no—

LUSKY.
Gone, gone.

BRANGONAR.
They 'd dare! Is Brangonar alive?
Or was he slain in the last fight this morning?
No—no—it cannot be—it cannot be.
Go bring my son, good Lusky.

LUSKY.
Sire, the Empress—

BRANGONAR.
To hell the Empress: bring my boy, my boy.

LUSKY.
She took him with her, Sire.

BRANGONAR.
My poor, poor boy!
They 've murdered him to be revenged on me.
O Devil! Devil!—Bear ye this, ye Heavens?
Did you look coldly on while this was doing?—
At last I know what 't is to suffer. Oh!
[He sinks on a sofa.
Is there a man on earth who hates me so,
He would not weep to see me thus? Oh! Oh!—
I am not worth the slaying now. My life,
That was so full, so great, is shrunk to nothing.
Poor Brangonar! Thou art a ship dismasted,
Tossed rudderless upon th' inhuman storm.—
But, see! thy flag still flies! One rope there is
Still stiff enough to hold it. Ha! it flies!
It streams, and the strong wind delights to meet
A strip yet stronger than itself. It flies—
See how it flames!—Give me my swiftest horse.
Away—away.

[Exit.

Scene IV.

A Public Square in the Capital.
Lovéro, Riordo, Carlan, and a tumultuous crowd of citizens, some shouting, “Down with all Emperors!” some, “Down with our enemies!”—“Up with the red flag!”—“Up with the white flag!”—“Drive out the invaders!”
CARLAN.
We 've been invaded long enough. Who are
Our enemies? That 's the question. Are they not
The miscreants who have gagged our speech, lest we
Should cry so loud against iniquity
That men would rise, and in their rightful wrath
Sweep these usurping tyrants from the soil?

RIORDO.
Aye, my dear countrymen; freedom to speak
Freedom to print, freedom to meet, all these,—
Which, mingled, make the blood of hardy manhood,
And robbed of which men cannot be but slaves,—
All these we know not of so long, our wills
Have basely ceased to value and to want them;
For Tyranny hath no more deadly bane
Than this, that it by use defiles the will.
Oppression's wormwood we have chewed so long,
We 've lost the flavor of sweet liberty.
The foreigner holds out a lifting hand:
No thanks to him. Once freed of native yoke,
The stranger we can rid us of at ease.

LOVÉRO.
My countrymen, which way we turn we 're weak.
A strength we yet may make of duty's beck.
Shorn of his might forever is the man
Whose single will has been our daily law.
A year ago a despot, he to-day,
Henceforth, dependent is upon ourselves.
That he usurped, sucking into himself
The sources of our public life and health;
That such a centring ever sounds the doom
Of freedom, drawing to one lung or few
The breath that should free circulate through all,
And, drained of which, each and the general whole
Languish in an unmanly servitude,—
All this is true, and more; and we have paid,
And long must pay, due penalties severe
For our submissiveness to tyranny.
Tyrant can Brangonar no longer be;
But we may be crushed, brayed by foreign heels.
But yesterday, and he and we were twain,—
Division fatal to all healthful polity;—
Now, he and we are one—or both are lost.
Loved countrymen, never until to-day
Did I feel scabbard flap upon my thigh,
And never till to-day did I uphold
Great Brangonar. Now, loyalty to him
Is loyalty to country and ourselves.
Before high Heaven and you I draw my sword,—
The first I ever drew,—and call on you
To follow me. I go to spend my blood,
My life, against our country's rageful foes,
To guard our hearths from desecration's tread.
Come on! all ye who hold your children dear,
Your wives, your mothers, and your sacred homes.

[Exit, the crowd rushing after him with shouts.
RIORDO.
Well, let them go: it is too late, too late.
Defection has the tyrant's force so sapped,
He can't make head against their swelling swarms.

CARLAN.
First down with him; then come what will or can.

[Exeunt.

Scene V.

At the Eastern Gate. Alarums, Excusions.
Enter Brangonar.
BRANGONAR.
Self-slaughter is no refuge for the great.
Cæsar could not have slain himself: he was
Too large a man. Such willful death he left
To a foiled Brutus, and the like of him.
Death seemed just now to shun me; for he struck,
Close by my side, the old and young; but me
He grazed not even with his fiery shaft.
His aim I neither courted nor avoided.
I have not sought the desperado's end.
Despair I know not, what so be my state.
I 've striven to shape events, nor striven in vain:
If they bend not, no more do I to them.
They may beat 'round me—me, my inmost self,
They cannot shake. The structure I have reared,
This gorgeous Empire, that lies low e'en now,
Razed quickly to the ground, as if there were,—
Shot from the limits of the heaving earth,—
A score tornados, black, concentric, swift,
All seeking one attractive centre,—me.
But me they touch not; nor can coarse oblivion,
With sultry breath, breathe dimness on my name.
Come what come will this day, I am a might
In History, a power, a theme immense,
A towering shaft deep founded in men's thoughts.—

Enter in haste an Aide-de-Camp.
AIDE-DE-CAMP.
Sire, we 're o'erpowered by numbers. All is lost.
Fly, Sire, fly: they'll be on us—here they are.
Fly, Sire, fly.

[Brangonar stands unmoved as the enemy, from the back of the stage, make towards him. A shout is heard from the side behind Brangonar, and, just as the assailants are about to seize him, enter Lovéro with soldiers who drive them back.
BRANGONAR.
Ha! Lovéro! You, Lovéro!
But for your coming I had now been taken.

LOVÉRO.
Your cause and mine are one again to-day.

BRANGONAR.
Give me your hand.—Till now I have not known you.
It had been better had I known you better.

LOVÉRO.
Fly, fly from this: we cannot hold this post.

[The enemy return and make at Brangonar, when Lovéro throws himself before him just in time to save him, and is himself struck down. His men rush to his side as he falls, and drive out the assailants.
BRANGONAR.
Lovéro! Lovéro!

LOVÉRO.
Too late—too late: fly—fly.

[Dies.
[The aide-de-camp seizes Brangonar, and with help of the soldiers, hurries him off, and then returns.
AIDE-DE-CAMP,
to the soldiers.
Take up your Captain's body. Nobler soul
Never took flight to heaven.
[Soldiers take up the body and bear it off.
This is a day!
A day marked in the annals of mankind
With exclamations from all future tongues.

[Exit.

Scene VI.

A Room in the Palace.
LUSKY,
alone.
I start to hear the echoes of my tread,
I who, morn, noon, and night, used to be sieged
By beggars, great and little, proud or meek.
The Palace is as empty as a street
Just swept by grape-shot: not a moving sound.
All smiling, flattering, cringing faces gone.
Misfortune melts the worldling's frigid hold,
And is upon th' adherents of the fallen
Active as beams of equinoctial sun
When first they strike the frosted foliage grown
From a calm snow-fall in an April night.
And such a master! Greater now to me
He seems than ever yet; so calm and clear.—
Where is he now? The last report was good;
But in a battle's hour minutes are months.
Perhaps—perhaps he 's slain—or taken captive!
A prisoner! he a prisoner!—Ha! here he is.
Enter Brangonar, pale and weak.
Sire, Sire! you 're wounded?

BRANGONAR.
No: not in the body.
Lovéro, Lusky. I was taken, when he
Came up and rescued me. I had been slain—
Their swords were at my breast—when he rushed in,
Thrust him upon the enemy's attack,
And took the strokes were meant for me. That was
A great, great death, a great, great deed. The man
Who does a deed so great himself is great.
I have not known Lovéro: would I had.
None of us see so far as we believe.
We are but journeymen, the best of us,
When most we think us masters. God is master.
And oft when we are disobeyed the most,
He is the most obeyed.—Should I have been,
Could I have been other than what I am?
What think you? You have known me, Lusky.

LUSKY.
Sire,
I cannot think you other than you are.

BRANGONAR.
Lusky—Lusky—come nearer, nearer, Lusky—
Jesola—Jesola—

LUSKY
Sire, she 's in the Palace.

Enter Jesola with her daughter.
BRANGONAR.
Is she? Is she?

[He rises from the sofa. Jesola comes forward and throws herself into his arms. Brangonar sinks on the sofa between Jesola and his child, Lusky kneeling beside them. —A file of officers and soldiers in red coats appear at the back of the stage, and then, opening in the middle, the scene opens behind them, and far off on the sea a man-of-war is seen; and the curtain drops.