 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
Scene III.—Rhagæ.
Alexander attended by Parmenio, Hephestion, and other Generals, and surrounded by soldiers.Alex.
Darius is fled forth. I have chased a shadow:
He'll raise new hosts; and I from realm to realm,
From year to year must hunt him. Lords, three days
Here we make rest perforce. Thus much, Parmenio,
You cost me at Arbela!
Par.
Gods of Greece!
Hear ye this man? My hand it was, my hand,
Raised from the dust your late-crown'd Macedon:
And lo! this day the heir of all this greatness
Upbraids me as a boy!
Alex.
I said, and say it:
Arbela all but won, to prop your squadrons
You call'd me back: Darius made escape:
I saw his chariot sink beneath the hills
Lit by the last gleam of a sun that set;
Let him that dares deny it.
Par.
I deny it!
My best and bravest from my squadrons drain'd,
Me with a trivial force your blindness placed
'Mid countless foes. With less consummate skill
Than mine that hour your whole left wing had perish'd.
In wrath, not fear, I warn'd you of your error:
You saw it, and you made retreat aghast:
Ere you had reach'd us the Thessalian horse
With fortunate charge piercing the Persian ranks
Had given us air to breathe. You spurn'd my counsel,
Or earlier than Arbela's fight began
Alex.
Aye! your counsel!
You will'd me to attack the foe by night:
I answer'd that I steal not victory:
The craven craft trips in the cloak that hides it
And falls to the earth. With slender force like mine
The worst defeat were victory incomplete:—
This Persian foe is as a mist that melts,
Re-forms, and swells against me. Oh, your counsels!
I scorn'd them from the first, or foot of mine
Had trod not Persian soil.
Par.
Shade of dead Philip!
Make answer in my name!
Alex.
You counsell'd me
Beside Granicus, not to cross the stream:
At Ephesus—by auguries back'd, and omens
That deepliest dint the craziest brain—you counsell'd
To fight by sea, not land, the Persian fleet
My ships exceeding fourfold, and with theirs
Phœnicia's mated. Issus won, you counsell'd
Naked to leave the Asian coasts, their prey
Their appanage, who, sailing from safe ports
Had raised revolted Greece from north to south
And barr'd me from return.
Par.
This too I counsell'd—
Omit not from that inventory of sins
So diligently register'd, my greatest—
To dash the red torch from a wanton's hand;
Flameless to leave royal Persepolis,
And shame the drunken revel!
Alex.
Hoary dotard!
Darest thou remind me of that sole offence
Which spots my sun-like fame? All-reverend mocker,
In blasphemy are flesh'd, of shames thou speakest!
One shame there rests—not merited—not mine—
On me and Greece! I spared to file my tongue
With thy transgression till this hour. Damascus
Madden'd, beholding from her centuried throne
The unutterable, obscene, impious act,
When they whom thou hadst bribed to sell their trust,
A long procession, from her gates advanced,
Their treasure in the midst, unarm'd, unfearing,
Old nobles, women, gown'd defenceless priests,
And thou, the fool-led pupil of that son
Whose boyish babble tunes thy senile drivel,
Perfidiously didst on them launch thy power,
And in their own blood drown.
Par.
It is a lie!
The impeachment is a lie; the man a liar!
That deed I wrought not, and I knew not of it:
In the rear I rode. Captains of Macedon,
Your ears have heard. I brand him for a liar!
Your king has lied, and lies!
Alex.
The grey hair—well thou know'st it—saves that head
Which else this sword had from thy shoulders swept.
I am requited justly who, unjustly
In glorious offices above thy peers
Stayed thee so long, for those high tasks unmeet
Which by Hephestion or by Ptolemy,
In silence were vicariously discharged.
I strip thee of all functions to the last:—
Take from him chain and sword!
Remember that the ruins of a man
Have in them ruin's claims.
The man who smote his king upon the face,
Who on his forehead nail'd the name of lie,
Shall live, but not beside him, and not near,
Honours shall keep, but sway no battle field,
Back to Ecbatana! Get thee hence, Parmenio!
And guard its citadel with Harpalus,
A pardon'd man like thee. My purpose stood
Thou thence shouldst join us with our Thracian aids:
It shall not be; for I distrust thy sword,
Though one time sharp; distrust, detest thy counsel,
Yet trust thy faithfulness to guard my gold
And keep my Median capital in awe.
Depart: work waits. Thy son shall take no hurt
From his sire's fall. On earth we meet no more.
Par.
King—for that pride which maddens, and will wreck you,
Demands such lessening titles—I depart.
I too, like you, have mused, and changed my purpose:
That which it was, and is, let no man ask.
This is the ending of a life-long league.
I laid my strong sword by your cradle's side;
I taught you how to walk, and how to run,
To ride, to swim; and when you sought to fly
I bade you to beware.
Could all this thing be painted, patch'd, adjusted,
Reduced to spleen of fancy, proven a dream,
This day from out the starry count of time
Be blotted, cancell'd, buried, and trod out,
I'd not so have it, for my heart is changed.
My head, you say, through age hath lost its cunning;
My heart hath insight still: I see your end:
For I shall see him soon.
You shall succeed, and your success be ruin:
You shall achieve a name: in after years
The byeword it shall live of madness crown'd:
By night the dagger, and the spear by day
From you shall glance: snow-wastes and burning sands
To you obsequious, shall but choke the just:
Yet all your greatness shall be changed to bane:
Your virtues shall not walk in Virtue's ways,
But glorify your vices, and the beam
Of your bright mind blacken that mind to madness:
The empire you shall build in cloudy wreck
Shall melt around your deathbed premature,
Which shall not be a warrior's: that first realm,
Your father's work and mine, to dust shall fall;
The Royal House evanish as a wind,
Your mother, and your sisters, sons, and wife,
Alexander's whole family was thus cut off. His wife, Arsinoe, and her sister Drypetis, the wife of Hephestion, were treacherously invited to Babylon, and there murdered by Roxana (the beautiful daughter of the Bactrian, Oxyartes), whom Alexander had married immediately after capturing her and her father during his march through Sogdiana. Roxana herself was put to death by order of Cassander, together with Alexander's son by her, then sixteen years of age, who bore his father's name. Hercules, the son of Alexander by Barsine, was murdered by Polysperchon at the instigation of Cassander. Yet more tragic was the fate of that wonderful woman, Alexander's mother, Olympias. Cassander had never forgotten the persistent enmity of Olympias to his father, Antipater. The day of his triumph came at last. He entered Macedonia, and after various vicissitudes of fortune, Olympias was obliged to take refuge in Pydna, with a large number of royal and noble persons attached to her court. The siege of Pydna was long and terrible; but the horrors of plague and of famine became at last unendurable; Olympias found herself deserted by her army, and Macedonia was in the hands of Cassander. At his instance the kinsmen of those whom Olympias had put to death in her hour of triumph accused her in a general assembly. There were none to plead her cause, and she was condemned to death. The aged queen was equal to the occasion. She clothed herself in her royal robes, and leaning on two of her women, came with a haughty mien to meet the party of soldiers which had been sent to despatch her. They stood before her helpless, overcome by the majesty of her aspect, and the great recollections connected with her name. Cassander then sent her accusers to be her executioners. The end is thus related by the historian Justin: ‘They slew her as she stood, not shrinking from sword, or wounds, nor clamouring aloud in womanly fashion, but meeting her death in a manner becoming her great race, so that in his dying mother Alexander might still be seen. In death she wrapped her person round in her robes, and covered her face with her hair, that nothing might attend her close inconsistent with the royal dignity.’
Struck down successive by a vassal hand
In bloody, base, and ignominious death.
Lords, give ye way. Some blood-drops in my brain
At times make dim mine eyes; but help I need not.
Who's this? Hephestion? Tell my son, Philotas,
That after-musings on this morn's discourse
Have somewhat changed my sentence. Home, they say,
Is best for age. I seek it. Eighty years
I have made my home on horseback. Sirs, farewell.
[Parmenio departs.
Alex.
To business! We have heard of clamours late
From men with homeward cravings. Let them know
That, though their service-time is unexpired,
But praised of him they served. We give the horse
Two thousand talents: to the rest we grant
For every man the tenth part of a talent,
Their pay continuing till they set their feet
On Grecian shores.
Ant.
We're weak without the horsemen.
Alex.
But these, with glory gladden'd and with gain,
Where'er they move—and wealth will make them restless—
Shall noise our name, and send our camp recruits
For each man lost, a score. To Grecian horsemen
Electing to abide we give three talents,
Foot-soldiers in proportion. Epocillus
Escorts them to the coast, and Menes thence
Shall steer them to Eubœa. Macedonians
Are free not less.
Alex.
So be it! The satrapy of conquer'd Media
On Oxodates we confer, a Mede,
But one by King Darius wrong'd—thence safe;
With him, for military government,
Joining Tlepomenus of Macedon.
The garrison at Ecbatana late left,
And with it three battalions of the Phalanx,
By Cleitus led, will make us soon forget
Those fissures in our ranks. Lords, fare ye well!
On the fourth morn once more we chase Darius:
I have heard that he has traitors in his ranks:
No friends are they of mine.
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