ACT I.
Scene I.—The Shore at Sestos.
Parmenio, Philotas, Cassander, Ptolemy.
Par.
Arrived in time: our transports, there they lie!
Embark the troops! He throws on me the tasks
That need the practised hand. Calas, yon tide
Will try the nerves of your Thessalian steeds,
And point their boding ears.
Phi.
Nicanor, mark!
Sea-born Abydos beckons us with smile
Saucy as Hero's. Death is death, or else
I'd have Leander's luck.
Par.
In this, my sons,
Our visionary prince shows fair ensample:
Glory he woos, not Pleasure.
Ptol.
Glory, or Empire?
For these are twain.
Par.
And which he most affects,
Then when your chronicle is writ and ended
The Athenian dialectic shall resolve.
Old Macedon, by Greeks barbaric styled,
Thank thou thy gods, and, after them, thy snows,
The strong heart still is thine!
Cas.
How those huge galleys
Dash the dark wave to silver! Touching the king—
Par.
What know I of the king? He sits in Persia.
Cas.
I meant our Macedonian.
Par.
Alexander?
Then call him by his name. A babe, I danced him;
A child, before me held him on my horse:
I am too old to orientalize.
Ptol.
He owes you much.
Par.
A realm his father owed me,
And knew it well. The son is reverent too,
But with a difference, sir. In Philip's time
My voice was Delphic on the battle-field:
This young man taps the springs of my experience
As though with water to allay his wine
Of keener inspirations. “Speak thy thought,
Parmenio!” Ere my words are half way out
He nods approval, or he smiles dissent.
Still, there is like him none! I marvelled oft
To see him breast that tempest from the north,
Drowning revolt in the Danubian wave.
The foe in sight, instant he knew their numbers;
If distant, guessed their whereabout—how lay
The intermediate tract—if fordable
The streams—the vales accessible to horse:
'Twas like the craft of beasts remote from man.
Phi.
Father, you ever boast the king reveres you;
I say, he flouts you in the army's face:
You rail; but still he conquers.
Par.
Son, 'tis so;
Young gamesters have their luck.
Phi.
He slights you daily,
And for your sake slights me. Last eve he passed me
(His hand was heavy on Hephestion's shoulder,
The Phalanx saw it, and the Silver Shields),
Vouchsafing me no word.
Scene II.—Troy.
Hephestion, Seleucus, Craterus, Citizens, Priests.
Cra.
He likes not Troy. His gaze, that's onward ever,
Like gaze of one that watches for the dawn,
Is bent to the earth.
Sel.
Far otherwise it beamed
When, in mid channel, lifting high the bowl,
He poured to great Poseidon and the nymphs
Their dues; far other when he flung far forth
Nighing the shore, his spear that shook for gladness,
Rooted in Asia's soil!
Alexander joins them, attended by Hephestion.
Tro. Cit.
Great King of Greeks!
Welcome! Atrides treads once more in Troy!
Alex.
Where is Achilles' fane—mine ancestor's?
I see it not.
Tro. Priest.
No fanes stand here to mortals.
Alex.
Ay, mortal was his sire. His arms, where are they?
2nd Cit.
Ulysses won them by the Greeks' decree.
Alex.
The Greeks! I knew you Phrygian by your garb
And medicated voice. Whose fane is that?
2nd Cit.
'Tis Aphrodite's, sire, that won the prize
On yonder Ida.
Alex.
Ay, your Aphrodite!
She that, the Helena among the gods—
I ever scorned that son of hers, Æneas:
But for his mother's veil around him flung
Tydides' hand had slain him. Troy consumed,
Where fled he?
Tro. Priest.
First to Carthage; next to Rome:
He founded there a State.
Alex.
A fugitive
Then founded what a bandit horde built up:
The twain were aptly yoked. That State shall crumble.
Whose fane is this? 'tis small, but fair.
Tro. Priest.
Athenè's.
Alex.
A man may enter this, and unashamed:
What arms are those that shine from yonder wall?
Tro. Priest.
The arms of Greeks who died at Troy.
Alex.
Remove them!
Into whatever battle-field I ride,
Those arms shall go before me. Where they hang
Suspend the panoply I wear. Athenè,
This night 'tis dedicate to thee.
A Tro. Cit.
Great king!
Behold the boast of Troy! My kindred guard it—
The lyre of Helen's husband!
Alex.
Mark, Hephestion,
The legend-mongers at their work! 'Twas thus
They forged in Macedon that preposterous tale,
Scandalous alike to me and to my mother,
Touching great Zeus. It made the God my sire:
'Twas false! my mother to her lord was true
Till, wronged, she slew him. Juggler, your lyre's a lie!
Show it to girls! I seek Achilles' tomb.
Hephestion, be thou with me. Sirs, farewell.
[Alexander and Hephestion walk on together.
Scene III.—Troy. The Portico of
Aphrodite's
Temple.
Philotas and Phylax.
Phi.
Banquet at sunset! Yonder priest morose
Has barred those gates, and swears the keys are stolen!
Our revel must be here: we'll have at feast
All wit and wisdom extant in our host;—
I am its Wit, and you, good Leech, its Wisdom!
You know my cooks of old! I pray you, Phylax,
Teach them to make the dish that richliest spiced
The wholesomest likewise! I have wealth and beauty,
My father's greatness, and the army's love:
One thing remains which men like me must fear—
Sickness; a serious sickness.
Phy.
Sage, though young!
Our craft was born to make delights less baneful.
Phi.
You shun delights yourself: I pardon you,
Knowing your sour mood comes from spite, not virtue:
Age should have spite: with scoffs the dry lip quickens:—
We are friends albeit unlike.
Phy.
Unlike in likeness:
We both speak truth: in youth I lived like you:
Age—if it comes—in time will make you acrid;—
If—for the vain like you, have many foes:
I am anatomist; 'neath the flesh that is
Mine eye notes still the skeleton to be
Whose grin diverts me better than youth's smile.
How like you battle-fields?
Phi.
In thought, not much:
But when the trumpets sound their music warms me:
Not less my valour is a reasoning thing:
In the onset fenced am I by huge strong men
Whose fortunes rest on mine. There's Ptolemy!
I call him “Empty head and stately step!”
I'd rather dine upon that man than with him!
Phylax, I think you love me!
Phy.
In my way—
Not with that love which fain would die to save you,
Yet love enough to avenge if slain by wrong.
Phi.
A league!
Phy.
I swear.
Phi.
Good friend, be here at sunset!
Scene IV.—Troy: near the Tomb of
Achilles.
Alexander and Hephestion.
Alex.
My master ofttimes, the wise Stagyrite,
Condemn'd the Passions, branded them as a yoke
Which Action's strenuous sons should scorn to bear,
And chiefly praised the Tragic Muse for this,
That, showing these as monsters, she with fire
Of Pity and Terror cleanses the clear soul
Lifted above all passions. This is Troy!
Dreamland ends here.
Heph.
Alas! how small an urn
Suffices for the earth-o' erstriding dust
Which one time shook the world!
Alex.
Must they too shrink,
Simois, and yon Scamander! Children ford
The flood that drown'd Greek warriors! Here the Sphinx
Makes banquet large: her riddle's hard to read.
That Ten Years' War, what fruit thereof remains?
What empire lives, its witness and its crown?
What shall we say? That those were common men
Made large by mists of Time? Or shall we rather
Conclude them real, and our age a fraud;
Determine that in them old Homer saw
Some greatness hidden from the blinded herd;
Foresaw some far result?
Heph.
Sir, from Achilles
Descendeth not Olympias?
Alex.
Ay.
Heph.
Through her
The spirit of the Strong Ones came on you:
I make my answer thus. The Trojan War
Begins its work decreed—in you begins it:
It finds not end in ashes and a song:
The empire you shall found must stand its witness.
But hush! The Tomb is here: the headstone o'er it
Half lost in brambles!
Alex.
(Anointing the pillar on the grave of Achilles).
Mighty Sire, Achilles!
Lift from the dimness of the dolorous realm
Thy face upon thy son! In it—I see it—
Survives, though sad, the unvanquishable youth;
In it alone. The phantom of a spear
Is all that now can weight that phantom hand
Which awed the Atridæ; and as though chain-bound
Move the swift feet that once outsped thy mother's
Bounding from wave to wave; yet, not the less,
Monarch thou walkest. 'Mid the Strengthless Heads
That, reverent, round thee flock—like thee lamenting,
Despite the embalm'd purpureal airs and gleam
Immeasurable of amaranthine meads,
Lamenting still the strenuous airs of earth,
And blasts from battlefields; like thee detesting
That frustrate, stagnant, ineffectual bourne
Where substance melts to shadow—lift, great king,
Once more from out the gloom a face sun-bright,
Elysium's wonder, on thy son's, and hear him:
To thee this day he consecrates his greatness:
Whate'er malign and intercepting Death
Detracted from thy greatness he concedes thee;
Remands thee from the gulf the deed unborn;
Yields thee, ere won, his victory and his empire:
This is the anointing, this the sacrifice,
Wherewith he crowns thy tomb.
[After a pause.
The night descends.
Hephestion, I depart.
[Hephestion crowns the pillar on the grave of
Patroclus, and rejoins Alexander.
Alex.
You tarried:—wherefore?
Heph.
For justice's sake, and friendship's. Is there room
For nothing, then, but greatness on the earth?
I crown'd that other tomb.
Alex.
What tomb?
Heph.
It stood
Close by, the loftier;—greater love had raised it;
Patroclus' tomb.
Alex.
'Tis strange I marked it not.
Heph.
These two were friends.
Alex.
Ay; nor in death divided.
Heph.
Therefore, despite that insolent cynic sect,
The gods have care for things on earth.
Alex.
Hephestion!
That which Patroclus to Achilles was
Art thou to me—my nearest and mine inmost.
In them, not lives alone, but fates were join'd:
Patroclus died; Achilles follow'd soon.
But lo, that glare! Abydos glances forth
Through the olive copse far off. A thousand wrinkles
Even now run up Parmenio's wintry brows
Shaping our battle's scheme. It rests not with him;
Yet be it his in fancy!
Scene V.—The Palace at Susa.
The Queen of Persia.
The Queen.
The morn is stiller than the night. How sweetly
The green of yon tall garden-trees o'erlays
Those golden bars of stationary light
That cut the marbles of the palace floor!
How pleasant, too, that fount's monotonous chime,
Wakening the self-same echoes in the courts
They heard in bygone years! May no change come!
[Arsinoe and the other royal children enter.
Ars.
Here is a lily, mother, pluck'd at dawn:
The dews were on it thick; upon the dews
I laid my kiss, because for you 'twas destined:
Now dews and kiss are gone!
The Queen.
The dews lie yet
Bright on your curls; I drop my kiss upon them:
May never rude hand touch my flower! You caught
The Spring asleep, and caged it in your bosom;
I feel its songsters there!
A Younger Child.
Mother! We found
A plant that showed us butterflies for blossoms:
We clapp'd our hands to fright them, but they moved not!
The Queen.
I see no butterflies; but these warm hands
Are more to me. This is your father's birthday.
He has heard ill tidings.
Ars.
Tidings! I remember
Some gardeners told us, but in mockery only,
'Twas said that pirates from an isle far off
Which one time had been liegeful to our Persia,
Wild men who drag their living from sea-waves,
By hunger roused to wrath had flung themselves
In war against mankind. We'll sell our gems,
And bid them purchase bread.
The Queen.
Their king invades us:
From hill to hill our watch-fires flashed the news.
The Younger Child.
How fair that sight must be! May we not see it?
The Queen.
That sight! Ah, child, thou know'st not what it means!
It means the torch laid to the poor man's roof:
The hamlet—older than these Halls—a-flaming!
It means the mother's wail; the shriek of babe
Half mad with fear, yet knowing not the danger!
It means that awful silence of the brave
When hope is past. It means the stream blood-red:
It means the lately disunited lips
Of lovers, blanched with death. It means a life
Made frustrate, and the grey-beard weeping sore
Above the ruined lands his youth reclaimed.
[A pause. She proceeds.
It means God's world become the prey of demons:
It means worst passions lion-like unbound.
Ah me! ah me!
A Lady.
The great, sweet eyes grow wild!
She sees that wreck!
The Queen.
Thank God, this Persian Realm
Though vast, is unaggressive—Persia's king,
Oh how unlike this king of savage hordes!
Ars.
I thought all kings were righteous, kind, paternal!
How old may be his kingdom?
The Queen.
'Tis a realm
Novel, yet proud; made up of rocks and vales,
With here and there a field where corn can grow;
'Tis smaller than our smallest Persian province.
Astar
(entering).
Gone mad at last! They've much to make them mad!
They're mad with false philosophies, and schemes
For building cloudy fabrics, brief as clouds,
Which they style Polities. They're mad, beside,
With orators that rouse to tempest mood
The popular sea wrath-ridden. They're madder yet
With rival altars and with warring gods
More bestial than themselves. Their Greece lay long
Prone in her intertangled, blind republics,
A knot of serpents glistening in the sun:
This day, in Alexander raised too late,
She stands erect—to die.
Ars.
Can nothing save them?
Ast.
In three weeks more, their heads from Susa's walls
Will frown against the sun.
Ars.
Not so! Not so!
'Twere shame to deal with misery thus. We're strong:
The sound must needs compassionate the sick:
The wise protect the weak. Ah me, I babble.
The Queen.
Because your sisters and your head strong brother
Name you their Intercessor, and because
Your little flock salute you Little Mother,
You'd throw your veil above a rebel race,
And hide them from their doom!
Ars.
Plead for them, mother!
Our agèd Sisygambis too shall plead:
Her heart is great.
The Queen.
She walk'd a lioness once;
Butsince her brethren died she's changed: there's in her
A tremor like the tremor in a tree
Which staggers o'er the axe. Three nights, moreover,
She's vision rack'd. She saw a portent wing'd
That storm-like from the West, against the storm,
Made way, and smote the East.
Ast.
The silver altars
Lift, day and night, that ever-living flame
The witness, bodiless, yet visible,
Of Him, that Spirit all-piercing, girdling all things,
All-quickening like the sun, though seal'd from sense
Lest man should see and die. His hand alone
Shines, lightning-like, through error of man's night,
Cleansing base shapes, or else, with happier change
Of dissolution glorious, raising high
And throning in clear skies. Great Persian Realm!
Whose stable basis is the strength of man,
Whose height his hope; within whose sea-like breadth
The storms but wrestle on the lap of calm;
The vigil of whose worship draws to earth
Her peace; whose centuries, misnamed of slumber,
Are fruitfuller to man than cyclic dreams
Of seeming-wakeful nations all whose life
Is lodged in foot and tongne; great Persian Realm!
Let the fly buzz upon thy wall world-wide,
The viper creep unheeded till it reaches
Thy trampling heel!
[An acclaim is heard without.
The Queen.
That sound might wake the dead!
The king returns: his people flock to meet him.
Scene VI.—The Western side of the Granicus.
The Greek army approaches it.
Alexander, Parmenio, and other Generals.
Par.
The crown of courage, boy, is self-restraint
When clamourers goad us. Pitch thy camp. They'll fly:
At dawn we pass the flood unquestion'd.
Alex.
Greeks!
To the water's edge!
(To Parmenio.)
The morning sun would daze us:
This hour it spites the foe.
Scene VII.—The Eastern bank of the Granicus.
The Persian Army commanded by Memnon of Rhodes.
With him are Spithridates, Satrap of Lydia,
Arsites, Satrap of Phrygia, and others.
Mem.
There's the famed Phalanx—by yon river's side—
Place the horse opposite; in them we're strongest:
Arsites, with your Phrygians guard yon bank:
Keep the south marge; nor threat them till they're crossing:
Then welcome them with javelins.
Ars.
I misdoubt
Our Grecian mercenaries.
Mem.
They will fight
If hearten'd by the event, or anger'd. Place them
On yonder rearward hill. The odds are with us.
Scene VIII.—The Western bank of the Granicus.
Alexander and his Generals.
Par.
Come what come may, this battle should be lost!
A chance may save it, or the gods may save it:—
By laws of war this battle should be lost.
Alex.
You're sure of that?
Par.
Here all things are against us;
The stream is swollen with April-melted snows;
The banks are treacherous, the fords infrequent,
And shifting with the eddies. Alexander,
You fight not here with Thracians. Mark yon mount!
Nor Dacian there, nor Mœsian rules the war:
Old Rhodian Memnon sets his teeth, and knots
The tangle of his wiles to lash you homewards:
See him there gather'd on his war-horse staid
That 'mid those trivial prancers knows to stand;
Firm-set he sits, crook-kneed, with hand o'er eyes
That slowly take their survey of the field,
A man that deals with war in the way of business.
Lo, there, he hurls his horsemen forth in squadrons!
Your Phalanx next must cross the flood. What then?
The uneven ground will loose their wedged array
Like a spread hedgehog.
Alex.
Shake our standard forth!
Let sound the trumpets! Send our battle down,
The Macedonian and Pæonian horse,
And infantry light-arm'd, upon the right;
And on the left the Thracian; in the centre
Our moving fortress, fenced with brazen walls,
Our Phalanx inexpugnable. Amyntas,
See it march, slanting, up the river's bed
There where the brighter current marks the shoal:
Already hath it served us. Persia's horse
Forms opposite, beguiled, on broken ground,
That shall not help them. March with shields high held,
For turning of their shafts.
Scene IX.—The Eastern bank of the Granicus.
The Hypaspists, Seleucus, and Cassander.
Cas.
We have left the waves behind; the worst is over!
Their shafts are straws, but these our spears have weight:
Thrust them into their faces! So—'tis well:
Spoil their fine looks, and spite their Asian brides:
Beat out Arabia's unguents from their curls:
Spare not the gem-wrought corselet!
Sel.
Alexander
Cried thus,—“My brave Hypaspists landed once,
The fight is fought, and won!” I heard him speak it!
Have at thee, silken Syrian! Next for thee,
Bactrian or Mede!
Cas.
How long it takes in crossing!
The Phalanx boasts itself a tortoise mail'd:
It moves as slowly.
[He falls, wounded by an arrow.
Sel.
Well charged, Pæonian horse! That charge has saved us!
Good friends, this blood is Persia's more than mine;
Pray gods it enter not my veins and taint them
With cowardice of Persia!
A Soldier.
Hark! it thunders!
[The Persian cavalry comes up, headed by
Mithridates, and at the same moment
Alexander from the opposite side.]
Alex.
(Striking down Mithridates with his spear.)
Give that to thy great cousin, King Darius!
Rhœ.
(Smiting Alexander on the helmet, which bursts asunder.)
Hail! Philip's son!
Alex.
Well aim'd, and nigh the mark!
From Philip this!
[Pierces his breast; Spithridates, riding up
from behind has just raised his sword above
Alexander's head when Cleitus severs
his arm with a sword-cut.]
'Twas timely; Lanicè
Shall thank her brother Cleitus for that stroke;
Else had she mourn'd her foster-child.
[The Phalanx pushes against the Persian
centre, which bends inward. The disorder
gradually reaches the extremities of the
Persian line, and the Macedonian cavalry
breaks through its weaker parts. The left
wing, under Parmenio, charges. The whole
Persian army falls into rout.]
Alex.
The field is ours! Persia to Parthian changes!
After them, Thracian horse; but not too far!
Drive them some twenty stadia; wheeling then,
Take in the rear those Grecian mercenaries:
At them in front, strong Phalanx! close them round
Northward with your Hypaspists, brave Seleucus!
These are the Greeks that sold their Greece for gold:
Grant others mercy; let no traitor live!
How now, Parmenio? Is it their strategy
That feigns this politic flight?
Par.
Sir, all the gods
Ride in the train of your triumphant fortune,
And hold the gold-cloth o'er your head ablaze;
For your sake they reverse all laws of war:
I said they might.
Eum.
Our horse has lost but sixty:
The victory's cheap.
Alex.
See that those dead be honoured
With kingly obsequies. No man of their kin
Not one, while Greece is Greece, shall stand amerced
With civil tax or toll.
Ptol.
Two thousand prisoners—
Alex.
We'll not forget them. Let them sweat, foot-chained,
In cities both of Macedon and Greece.
Eum.
The body-guard have lost but twenty-five.
Alex.
Write on thy tablets, we decree them statues
In Pella, where my tomb shall stand one day,
My task complete. Lysippus be the sculptor:
We grace the Persian dead with funeral rites:
They fought in their allegiance. Send to Athens
Three hundred suits of armour stripped from these
The stone-cold dead: upon the Acropolis
See they be ranged—in great Athenè's fane—
With this inscription 'neath them: “Alexander,
The son of Philip, when the Persian host
Fell at Granicus, sent to Greece this spoil:
The Grecians holp to take it, save alone
The men of Lacedemon.” Grave it in marble.
Eum.
It shall be so ordain'd.
Alex.
Hephestion, send
Our noblest spoils to Ilium's maiden fane:
Let Ilium bear henceforth a city's title.
Mith.
(the governor of Sardis, arriving).
Sardis submits, laying before her king
The keys of her great treasury.
Alex.
Tell me, sir,
How many factions rage there in your city?
Mith.
Two, mighty king, the nobles and the people:
The nobles rule.
Alex.
Their rule is over-ruled:
We prop the weaker; they shall need us most.
Proclaim to Sardis that all privileges
Ravished from her by Persia, we to her
Revindicate. To Ephesian Artemis,
A goddess friendly still to Macedon,
Whose temple at our birth-hour fell by fire,
We shall be helpful likewise. Ephesus
Herself by penitence shall purge that wrong
Done to my father's statue. Tell those realms
Betwixt the Euxine and Pamphylian seas,
That Grecian galaxy of Lesser Asia,
That Argive choir in eastern exile sad,
That Doric garland on base Persia's brow,
We came not here to crush them, but exalt:
This hand shall lift them to their first estate,
And lodge them 'mid the skiey heights of Greece.
Let it be noised abroad.
Scene X.—Near the Granicus.
Philotas, Antisthenes.
Phi.
To me alone he spake no word of honour:—
Is that Hephestion's malice, or his own?
Ant.
His own. This king is valued past his worth:
I join'd his march to write his deeds, and note
He deigns to touch no book save blind old Homer.
He nothing says that's sage, like Ptolemy,
Or keen of edge like Craterus. I grant him,
Sagacity supreme in observation:
He sees with more than sight: seeing with him,
Is Act and Thought, not sense.
Phi.
'Twas said of old,
“Philip is but Parmenio:” others cried
In Thrace, “What's Alexander but Philotas!”
Yet this is he that scorns me! All save life
I'd peril for revenge.
Ant.
Nor valour here,
Nor learning meets its guerdon. Yet remember
In scheme or act to place Parmenio first;
He's rooted in the popular mind so deep
No storm can shake him. Be it whisper'd still,
“Parmenio frown'd,” “Parmenio disapproved,”
“Parmenio censured much the young man's rashness:”
When Fortune swerves the king shall bear the brunt:
Parmenio fill his throne.
Phi.
I hear of plots.
Ant.
Hear, heed, and hide; but help not. Wait, and win;
Let others run the risk.
Phi.
You'll meet at supper
Phylax, my leech.
