University of Virginia Library

ACT II.

Scene I.—A Sea-cliff opposite New Tyre.

Alexander
(alone).
Wings without body! Such—no more—is Commerce
Which rests not upon Empire! Commerce, ruling,
Disperses man's chief forces; commerce ruled
By spirit heroic, yields increase of thoughts
That give a wider base to greatness. Tyre!
How soon thy golden feathers forth shall fly
Upon the storm of War! Lo, where she sits
Upon her rock, wave-girt, and turret-crown'd,
Gazing toward her western daughter, Carthage!—
Tyre of the ships! Phœnicia gave us letters,
Which are to mind as fingers to the hand,
And shape, dividing, Thought's articulate world:—
For Greece she found them, using them not herself;
Men stumble thus on glories not for them,
The rightful appanage of the capable.
The Empire which I found shall tread the earth,
Yet ever it go flying. From its vans
The twin-born beams of Grecian Song and Science
Shall send perpetual dawn. Hephestion, welcome!

Heph.
(joining him).
How long you gaze on yonder beaming sea!
It burns mine eyes like fire.

Alex.
[After a pause.

Heph.
I can see it:
Hard by Canobus stretches, long and thin,
Sharp, like an adder's tongue, a promontory—

Alex.
It guards the region's harbour, one and sole:
Thereon my world's great diadem shall rest:
On Alexandria's quays Greek and Egyptian
Shall join in traffic: through the populous streets
My Phalanx shall return from conquer'd lands;
There shall old Egypt lisp our Grecian tongue
The Phidian hand subdue the hieroglyph;
Athenè share with Isis! Hail, Seleucus!
A cloud is on your countenance.

Sel.
(arriving).
Alexander!
I have fought your battles, and I love you inly
But fawn on no man's follies. What is this?
Shall soldiers sweat and toil like beasts of burthen,
And I their task-master to pare the wage?
Month after month they toil, to make this causeway
'Twixt Ancient Tyre and New; our gallant steeds
That chased so oft the foe—

Alex.
'Tis well: three stadia
The causeway's made. Remains to make the fourth:
That done, we reach the gates of Tyre, and knock.

Sel.
The fourth is thrice the three for time and labour:
We're now in deepening water: from its rock
Yon city walls ascend two hundred palms:
Their arrows gall us: on their towers they raise
Huge furnaces.

Alex.
Seleucus, all is cared for;
Two thousand arms have striven three days and more
In controversy with the centuried pine
On Libanus; in four my towers shall stand
High as their towers, and make them large reply.
Return, my friend. Tell them their king, ere long,
Will lead them into Tyre. (Seleucus departs moodily.)
Mark you, Hephestion,
They're in one tale, Seleucus and the rest:
Seleucus loves me well, nor boasts himself:
Another's gloom it is that clouds his brow:
Parmenio hates this march to Tyre and Egypt:
His mind grows leaner than the threaded sails
Of yonder bark so worn the wind goes through them:
It holds no thought that's new. I count that man
My chief of dangers. 'Tis a desperate game:
I'll have no shrewish counsellor near, to shake
My soldiers' hearts with cavils.

Heph.
Old Parmenio
Is spleenful when he thinks: he's best in action.

Alex.
I, who defer not easily to facts
Which cross my purpose, see them when they're plain:
Those which confront me reason of themselves.
Demosthenes, the wonder-working voice,
In Athens roars against me. Lacedæmon
Pushes her horn, dull Agis, at my sides:
Strong-hearted Thebes remembers. In old time
But one Thersites stood 'mid many kings;
Therein, methinks, great Homer show'd his wit;
Those States are, each, Thersites, windier grown,
And I their monarch one and sole. If Persia
Should join with those, and fire the world behind me,
Advance were hard; retreat impossible.
Therefore I cleave from Persia Tyre and Egypt,
Their ports, their ships, harbours, and mariners;
So shall she turn her face from Greece, and I
Sleep without dream. I told Parmenio this.

Heph.
He answered?

Alex.
Still the old note—“Darius arms:
A year, and all his empire will be on you.”

Heph.
He boasts a million soldiers.

Alex.
Let them come!
A moiety of their numbers fought at Issus.
Let him bring up his empire's total strength:
Be it embattled, we will bring it under.
The enmity I fear is that which lurks
A dull swamp-fever in that people's veins
Which hates its lord because it scorns itself,
And, having striven but half, knows not its limit.
This is the hate which bides its time. A realm
Shall stand confuted in war's argument
Then when its say is said: well silenced, Time
Takes still the conqueror's side.

Heph.
Is there forgiveness
For conquerors?

Alex.
Ay; but for half conquerors, none.
The realms which earlier conquerors won, they stole,
Using for personal ends. What rule all glorious
That primal usurpation counterpoised?
What victories swathed the grub in light? What hand
Beneficent in sternness, or, if soft,
Parental, not seductive, raised on high,
With virtue strengthened, or with knowledge lit
Those kingdoms subjugate? I wrest them back
In the name of honesty and upright dealing,
And give them to mankind. If sword of mine
Had slept in the iron ore for endless ages,
Spurning its call divine, the mocking gods
Bending from heaven had swept with menial besom,
As from fair pavements, dust, those menial kings,
The opprobrium of authentic royalty.
The realms I rule shall love me.

Heph.
Lesser Asia
'Tis true this day is with you.

Alex.
Persia shall be:
But till she does her best, and worst, and fails,
The work I work is temporal. Let her do it!
Then comes my time:—
Strong hand makes empire: hand that heals retains it.
I came not to be Cyrus o'er again;
Another reign begins. Enough: 'tis late:—
How fares that fallen House?

Heph.
As Patience fares
In the extreme of sadness. Sisygambis,
Under the great weight of her ninety years,
Sits heavy, slowly moving tearless eyes
Which seek her son Darius, or, it may be,
Her eighty brothers, slaughtered in one day
Long since by Ochus. She that was the queen
On the queen-mother gazes without speech,
And, pitying that high grief, tempers her own.
The royal children stand, now glad, now pensive,
'Twixt light and shade.

Alex.
I chose for them the best,
Consigning them to you.

Heph.
The palace pile
Of olden Tyre affords them kind repose:
The sea-dirge scarce can pierce its massive walls:
There they have woodland shades for grief to hide in,
And streams to lull the voice of memory.
Those Easterns call such places Paradises,
And much affect them.

Alex.
Seek that aged queen,
Hephestion. When my leisure serves I'll see her.

Scene II.—The Senate House in New Tyre.

Hanno, Hamilcar, Asdrubal, Ithocles, and other Tyrians.
Han.
He says we're merchants, and in merchant wise
We trafficked with him, and equivocated,
First sending him in pomp a golden crown,
Next, when he fain had offered vows to Melkart,
Denying access.

Asd.
Let him pray outside:
He makes no landing here.

Ith.
We're strong enough,
And victuall'd for two years. 'Twixt Greece and Persia
The issue hangs in doubt: if Greece should fail,
Persia shall be beholden much to us,
That kept her foe far from her. If she wins—

Ham.
Ten citizens have dream'd Apollo's statue,
Ta'en 'mid the chiefest spoils when Gela fell,
And now by gift of Carthage ours, stood up
Beside their beds with stormy brow though bright,
And said, “I leave this city.”

Asd.
Close those gates!
Whene'er they're opened such a din comes o'er us
From keels half laid, and blasts from new-forged engines,
I hear not him that speaks.

Ith.
The gates, ye slaves!

A Herald
(entering).
Lords of the Senate, hail!
Great Carthage honours
The queenly womb from which her greatness sprang,
Accepts your terms, the Cypriot port, and trade
In gums Arabian shared on equal terms,

And stands your mate in arms.

[Shouts of applause.
A Senator.
Who speaks of yielding?

2nd Sen.
The gods are with us.

3rd Sen.
Thus my sentence stands—
Bind we with golden chains Apollo's statue
To the altar of great Melkart! Tyre's new guest
Shall love his city. Thus the Ephesians wrought:
And with them bode their god thenceforth in peace.

Scene III.—Sea-shore near Old Tyre.

Alexander, Ptolemy, Hephestion.
Alex.
There's truth on earth still extant. Read that missive:

Ptol.
(reads aloud).
“‘The Hebrew people, subject long to Persia,
Revolt not. Neither war they with the Greek
That wrong'd them not. Their God shall guard His own.’”

Alex.
These men speak plainly; Tyre prevaricated:
These stand at neither side; but Tyre at both:
I somewhat love thee, Hierosolyma!
I'll find a time ere Tyre has met her doom
To look upon that city. Lo, Philotas!
[Philotas approaches.
He has been a-prospering, and his heart is high.

Ptol.
'Tis higher than his head; and that he tosses
As though he supp'd with gods. His thoughts, what are they?
Brain-bubbles from infructuous restlessness:
Alone the slowly-gender'd thought lives long:
The rest I deem of as the buzzing swarm
Teem'd from the mud of Nile.

Phi.
Hail, Alexander!
Damascus sups with Death!

Alex.
It ne'er was strong.

Phi.
Oh, 'tis a mighty city, and a rich!
It stands in meads well-water'd, girt with gardens
That charge the winds with fragrance. Then the captives!
Their ransom shall enrich you with a flood
Beggaring the all-gold Pactolus;—princely ladies
From Issus, and three daughters of King Ochus;
Dead Memnon's widow, and his daughters three.
We've clutch'd, 'mid other spoils, Darius' wardrobe!
If all Old Tyre were turn'd to theatre,
And all our soldiers changed to mimes, the least
Might choose his part, and play it with fit garb!
I'd end this tedious siege with one great drama,
“The tragic comedy of Persia's fall,”
(Myself the extempore Aristophanes)
And homeward speed next morn!

Alex.
The royal treasure?

Phi.
Sir, 'tis a world of ingots and of gems.

Alex.
That means a fleet. The price of Sidon's paid.

Phi.
The treasure's well; but oh, the way we won it!
Upon an intercepted messenger
We found a scroll from him that ruled Damascus,
Proffering submission, friendship, and the gold.
We sent him back—a smile our only answer—
And follow'd to the city. From its gates
A long procession issued streaming forth,
Sleek courtiers, nobles, magistrates, and priests,
Seven thousand beasts of burthen in their midst
Beneath the treasure bent. Old Syphax cried,
“They'll claim reward.” Like lightning, while they near'd us,
As though we took that concourse huge for war,
We hurled on them a squadron of our horse,
With orders not to spare. The sight was merry:
The wonder in their stupid eyes upturn'd
Surpass'd, methought, the terror!

Alex.
[Philotas makes obeisance and retires.

Heph.
I've noted that long since. The man's still young:
Coldness in youth is twice the cold of eld:
Beneath the ashes of a fire burnt out
Some heat may lurk; but from the unfuell'd hearth
And dusk bars of a never-lighted fire
The chillness comes of death. Not Macedon,
'Twas warm Greece taught me that.

Alex.
Beware the man!
Twice, while I rated him, he glanced at you
With sidelong eye. He'll hurt you when he may.

Scene IV.—The Causeway between Old and New Tyre.

Phylax, Antisthenes.
Ant.
Methinks our king grows proud.

Phy.
It is high diet
Turns pack-horse into charger. The o'er-fed gods
Are emulous pampering this youth with triumphs.

Ant.
Let him take Tyre, and then he may be proud;
But if he fails, these fingers shall record it,
“At Tyre it was the Greeks first call'd him proud.”
Our patron loves him not, nor loves Hephestion.

Phy.
Philotas hates the king; but scorns Hephestion:
Our patron's hasty. Time befriends the slow.

Scene V.—The Gardens of the Palace at Old Tyre.

Hephestion, Arsinoe.
Ars.
Hephestion, well return'd! My mother sits
To-day recluse. She bade me show you flowers:
Here is a rose unblown. My mother thinks
God made the world for peace, not war, Hephestion,
Or he had never planted roses in it;
But what think you?

Heph.
Princess, the rose hath thorns:
'Tis sweetness mixed with sharpness: such is war.
I see your cousin walks beneath the palms.

Ars.
Is she not fair?

Heph.
None fairer. Three days since
Passing, she fix'd on us her great blue eyes,
That seem'd to shine through tears.

Ars.
They're tearful ever:
She is an orphan, nursed within our house:
She told you once that we were like two sisters;
But more she loves me far than sisters love.
Amastris reads—her wont—a book all gold:
'Tis full of songs: I fear they're chiefly war-songs.
Were there in all times wars?

Heph.
Princess, there were:
Our Homer sang of battles.

Ars.
Think you not
He sang of battles in his songs' behoof,
Lest, singing only little lays of love,
Strong hearts had scorn'd his music? This I know,
War is not hatred only; for our king,
Hearing of some great deed your king had wrought,
Some deed both just and brave, lifted his hands
And pray'd—“Preserve, Dread Power, this Persian crown!
Yet, if from us thou rend it, let it light
On Alexander's brows!”

Heph.
That was a prayer
Fit for a king!

Ars.
Your king in reverence greets
Our Sisygambis with a “mother's” name:
And yet, methinks, he neither loves nor hates.

Heph.
He loves not many, and himself the least:
His purposes to him are wife and child.
He couch'd on frosty rocks while huddled crowds
Shut out the watch fires. When the summer heat
More late had dried the marrow in our bones,
And now, a spring discover'd, crawling came
A soldier with a water-cup, one moment
He gazed into the eyes of those around,
Then pour'd that water on the sands. Alone
He would not drink it.

Ars.
Ask me not, Hephestion,
To love your king, or wish him what you wish:
That were, in me, disloyal, faithless, false;
I needs must wish him failure. Oh for the time
When all the good shall war on all things evil,
And none upon each other! It shall come!
The Light shall vanquish Dark. Who made mankind
Will tell us, one day, all we need to know.

Heph.
Then why so late?

Ars.
No doubt that man may learn
His need of light, and prize it well when granted;
For thus by question apt, and feign'd delay,
Parent in child quickens the appetite
For knowledge first, and after that rewards it;
And what are years—or ages—to a god?
Then wars shall cease.

Heph.
War is an instinct, princess;
The gods have given it, and the god-like praised:
It lifts us o'er the petty love of life,
The quest for pleasure, and the greed for gold;
It makes a nation's manhood; stifles factions;
Crowns the great head watching the whole night long
For them that sleep. War, like a healthful tempest,
Scatters the infection.

Ars.
Ah, the Greek is hard!
I guess'd it once; I know it now. Last year
I saw a palace fill'd with Grecian statues:
How beautiful they were; but yet how loveless!
Sweetness was theirs, and majesty, and grace;
Yet theirs, methought, a world that knew no pity:
A thing hard-hearted seem'd your Grecian Art.
Our art was rule: Persia held high her head;—
The Power Divine beheld, and brought it low:
What if the heart of Greece should turn to stone?
Shall she escape?

Heph.
I have had my boding thoughts:—
She's great in war.

Ars.
Praise not that murderer, War!
Persia had Empery; Greece hath Art and Science:
Why not content them, each, with what she hath?
Or as a youth in marriage takes a maid,
And of these twain a lovely race is born,
Why should not warring nations wed their gifts
And breed some god-like gain? What hope from war?
What fruit but breaking hearts?

Heph.
That shade comes o'er you
Which veil'd you when we met:—when, Issus won,
The king and I entered a wailing tent
With speed to tell you that your father lived.

Ars.
How gentle seem'd you then! He, too, was gentle:
We knelt to you, misdeeming you the king:
Your king but laugh'd. He lacked not royal face,
Albeit too eager-eyed.

Heph.
The other Greeks,
Of them what say you?

Ars.
They are light and boastful,
Save Ptolemy, upon whose grave, broad brow
Empire might sit: they spurn the earth, not tread it:
Here is the one I like the least. Abide
Till he is gone, Hephestion.

Phi.
(approaching).
Beam and breeze,
Maiden, to you, and these, the inferior flowers,
Are boon alike. Suspecting in that rose
Your beauty's future rival you were wise
To pluck it still unblown. You'll prove as kind
Bestowing it on me.

Ars.
The Royal House
Accords its gifts to those who claim them least:
I pluck'd it for Hephestion.

Phi.
He is happy:
The favourites of a prince are favourites still
With those around him—nobles, courtiers, captives—
Warriors alone, attent on graver cares,
Catch not the lesser whispers of a court:
Rustlings of silk for others, not for them,
Reveal their oracles.

Ars.
Hephestion—

Phi.
Lady,
Your mother, doubtless, would have news of friends
Housed in Damascus: I am lately thence.

Ars.
Her majesty sojourns with the palace:
It may be she will see you.

Phi.
Lady, farewell!
[Aside, departing.
One day Hephestion shall remember this.

Ars.
He's gone:—the day grows still. Hold you, Hephestion,
A favourite 'mid the flowers?

Heph.
Princess, in this
The oft-erring public vote I deem not erring.
You have heard the legend of the Flowers' Debate.
The Rose advanced her claim: “Love's flower am I!
The nightingale loves more my fragrant breast
Than his own feather'd mate.” The Lily next,
“The flower of Purity am I: young maids
Boast me their snowy standard.” At the word,
The Rose put forth her first white bud, and wears
Since then the double crown.

Ars.
I like that legend:
Who made it?

Heph.
I—unless you made it, princess:
My eyes were on you when the thought descended.

Ars.
Hephestion, I have not forgot my promise;
This rose-bud take; 'tis white. Could rose-buds live
As long as grateful thoughts, or were they loved
Their freshness past, 'twould help you to remember
In hours to come, what else you might forget,
Kindness in prison'd days to burthen'd hearts,
Kindness to helpless womanhood, sad old age,
Childhood—or what was childhood till our woes
Had changed young hearts to serious. I must go:
By this time our sweet mother will expect me.
For his sake whom you love, your king, your friend,
Jest not with dangers in the wars before you.

Heph.
Princess, for me this flower will keep its freshness.

Scene VI.—Gate of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Ptolemy, with a squadron of Thessalian Horse, which passes on.
Ptol.
Till he returns, this fig-tree be my shade!
[Alone.
He's right, and yet he's wrong, you kingly builder.
That kingdom which he spake of—one o'er earth—
Would prove a god-like work indeed if built
Upon the good alone within man's breast,
If on its ill, then ill were lord of all,
Since in all lands the ill-workers would be one,
Weakened till now by realms and states at variance.
But what shall sever 'twixt man's good and ill?
Not power, it works with each by turn; not law,
Law deals but with man's actions, not his heart;
Not science, science rules but worlds of thought;
Not art, 'tis a child's warble; not religion,
Men fear the gods, but serve not less their lusts:
The things without us are but casual to us:
The things within us share our human taint.
On something deeper in us than self-love,
He who would lift mankind must build. That something
No child of man has found, or e'er can find:—
Therefore, like isle from sunless waters raised
And fix'd where nothing was, that Power who made us,
Who knows alone our spirit's depths, and sees
Alone the eddies of the restless waters,
Must raise some under realm, all adamant,
There build—if he will build. Shall that be ever?
I know not. He who made the world is strong:
Yet miracle were that passing the dream
Of prophet, priest, or bard. 'Tis still the old round:
Realm wars on realm lest wrong should meet no scourge.
This youth must plan; and pass.

Scene VII.—Interior of the Temple.

The Jewish High Priest, Alexander.
High Priest.
This is that scroll whereof I spake to thee;
That Vision which the exiled prophet saw,
Sitting in Susa, by Choaspes' flood:
“In vision I beheld a Beast two-horn'd;
Westward he push'd, and northward, and to south,
Nor any stood before him, After that,
Another, mightier portent, swifter far
Rush'd from the west, o'er face of all the earth
Which yet he touch'd not, flying upon wings;
He smote against that Beast, and trod him down;
Nor any might deliver. Then, a Voice
There reach'd me from betwixt the river banks:
‘That Beast which thou beheldest is that king,
Lord of the Median and the Persian realms:
He that shall overcome him is the Greek.’”
This is that Vision which our prophet saw.

Alex.
That Voice your prophet heard was Voice of
God—
(after musing)
You will not wed my cause, and save your city?

High Priest.
We may not, and we will not.

Alex.
Yet you know
Mine is the empire?

High Priest.
What is writ is writ.

Alex.
What was that sacrifice you offer'd late?
The like I have not seen.

High Priest.
The shadow 'twas
Of substance onward striding. Ask no more:
We are prophet-people: ours the Hope:
We are God's people, and we stand apart:
The kings of the earth may speed us, or may rend;
Know us they cannot.

Alex.
I too had a vision—
I yield you credence, Priest. I have repented
My first resolve, and fling it from me far:
I tribute none demand, and in your city
Challenge no rule.
Your prophets spake in ancient days of me;
Spake they in earlier days of Persian Cyrus?

High Priest.
By name, before his birth two hundred years:
Hear thou God's Edict. “Cyrus is my shepherd:
I hold his right hand, loosening at his feet
The hearts of Monarchs. I will cut in twain
The bars of iron and the brazen gates.”

Alex.
The Babylonian gates stood wide that night
When back Euphrates shrank.

High Priest
(reading).
“Be dry, ye rivers!
In Babylon the desert beast shall hide;
The dragon couch within her palaces;
The bittern shriek above her shallow pools.”
Young man, hold thou no hand to Babylon,
For God hath judged her, lest thou share her plagues.

Alex.
Hers was the first of Empires, and the worst—
(After a pause.)
The day goes by; lead onward to the gates.
O'er all the earth my empire shall be just,
Godlike my rule.

High Priest.
Young man, beware! God's prophet
Awards thee Persia's crown, but not the world's:
He who wears that should be the Prince of Peace.
Thy portion lies in bounds. Limit and Term
Govern the world. Thou know'st the Voice was God's
That spake. Two ways there are—between them choose.

Alex.
I shall not fail to meditate these twain;
Then make election.

High Priest.
Pardon, royal sir,
A little moment past your choice was made:
'Tis known above; and you one day will know it.
You trust not God: the man you trust will fail you.

Alex.
What man?

High Priest.
Yourself.

Alex.
At least I trust none other.

High Priest.
My message is delivered: Sir, farewell!

[High Priest departs. Ptolemy enters
Alex.
There sits unwonted wonder on your brow,
My Ptolemy!

Ptol.
Sir, all men kneel to you,’
You but to one, and him a man unknown!
When first that long and strange procession reach'd us
I saw an earnest inquest in your eye,
A pallor on your cheek.

Alex.
You err, my friend:
I knelt, but not to one unseen till then.
Three years gone by, three months, and twenty days,
At noon I sat in Macedonian Dium,
(Its witless sons acclaimed me as a god)
Musing the fortunes of this Asian war
Then but decreed. There fell on me a trance
Filled with strange fear. Never save in that trance
Have I known fear.

Ptol.
What saw you in it, sir?

Alex.
Things as they were.

Ptol.
No more?

Alex.
Yea, things beside:
My captains grew ape-visaged, and chattering rush'd
On errands all confused, while down the street,
In the wide Agora, on the temple's steps,
The concourse, shrunk to pigmies, scream'd and strove;—
The tallest like a three years' child. Meanwhile,
There where benignant plains had spread but late,
Heaven-high there hung in the east a mount, firecrown'd,
And ruin-flank'd—a mount which seemed a world
Huger than man's. The pigmies and the apes
Saw it and laughed.

Ptol.
'Twas strange!

Alex.
It was not slumber:
Parmenio and Philotas at my right,
You, Ptolemy, at my left, witnessed and sware
That from my session ta'en till, sunset nigh,
The priesthood issued from the fane of Zeus
I had not ceased from audience and command
Though sterner than my wont. The trance was long,
And, as it deepen'd, darkness closed around:
Then from that darkness like a god this man
Drew near, methought, that mitre on his brow,
That gem-illumined breast-plate on his breast.
He spake,—“Fear nought; the God I serve shall lay
His hand upon thy head, and lead thee on
Triumphant through the danger and the gloom.”
This world is full of wonders, Ptolemy,
Or else it were not world for man, since man
Is marvellous most. Divulge this thing to none,
Nor write it in thine annals of the war.

Scene VIII.—The Causeway between Old Tyre and New Tyre.

Hephestion, Craterus, Seleucus.
Cra.
We've waited for the king, and for a wind:
The wind is ours at last.

Sel.
And in fit time
The king, that's wafted still by fortunate winds.

Alex.
(arriving).
The wind is fair, and all the gods are with us!
Bear up, my Cypriot and Sidonian fleets;
I've bought you with a price! cut well the seas,
And as the sword into the scabbard glides,
So rush into their harbours! The boarding ships,
You're sure they lie beside our mole, Seleucus,
And moor'd by chains, not ropes? Those Tyrian divers
Will cut them else adrift.

Sel.
They tried it thrice,
You baffled them. We're ready, sire.

Heph.
Lo, there!
They drag their prisoners round yon city's walls—
Each after each they bend them to the block;—
They hurl their headless trunks into the flood!

Sel.
Hark to that shout!

Alex.
Our fleets have forced the harbours!
Up with the engines and the storming-parties!
I cross the right-hand galley with Admetus;
You, Cœnus, with Lysander, cross the left.
Forth with the landing-planks and scaling-ladders!
On, on, and up!

[Alexander is the first to mount the walls.
Hamilcar
(from the tower).
Men of Phœnicia,
still the heights are ours.
Hurl on them sleet of fire!

Hanno.
'Tis life or death!

Alex.
(striking him down).
Then take thy death!

Heph.
And take, Hamilcar, thine!

[His sword breaks; he closes with Hamilcar, and flings him from the right-hand tower into the sea. At the same moment Cœnus gains the left-hand tower.
Alex.
'Tis won! They fly!

Scene IX.—The Palace of New Tyre.

The Tyrian King, Azelmicus, Asdrubal, Ithocles, Generals and Senators. The Ambassadors from Carthage.
The King.
I'm old for fight, but young enough to die:
I'll wait them on my throne.

Asd.
Within the vaults
'Neath Melkart's fane, amid our heaps of treasure,
Conceal him with those envoys from the west:
And see they bear the Tyrian crown to Carthage;
Old Tyre has done with it. A ceremony
[Senators bear away the king and ambassadors.
Remains or ere we die.

Ith.
The torch? 'Tis here.
The palace of great Tyre shall house them never.

[The Tyrians are driven in from all sides on the Palace, which bursts into flame. At this moment Alexander arrives.
Asd.
Tyrians, we fight for vengeance, not for life—
Tyre ne'er forewent that solace.

Ith.
Vengeance! Vengeance!

[The battle rages till the whole Tyrian garrison has been cut down.
Alex.
So perish sea-born Tyre that ruled the waters!
She sinks, like yonder sun, in a sea all blood.
At dawn with feast and military honours,
We'll thank the just and promise-keeping gods
Who have led us thus far forth on victory's way.
Seleucus, see the priesthood dedicate
Yonder in Melkart's fane that conquering engine
Which shatter'd first yon wall. Ye sons of Greece!
Your country thanks you: many a song of hers
Will celebrate this deed! A spoil is yours
Well earn'd. Three days we rest: the fourth for Egypt!