University of Virginia Library

ACT IV.

Scene I.—Susa, in front of the Palace.

Antigonus, Eumenes, Seleucus, Craterus, Peucestas, Amyntas, Phylax.
Ant.
At Susa once again! Why, this is Greece!
One time it seemed the eastern edge of earth;
Measured by that great space we have tracked, 'tis home.

Eum.
Six years ago we gazed on yonder palace:
In three we conquered Asia's eastern half;
India in three!

Sel.
India! once more I ee it,
Once more I tread its palm-groves and its plains,
I scan the red sun through the sandy mist,
And hear the lion's roar. Our earlier conquests
Were prelude notes—no more.

Amy.
I am late arrived:
Recount the tale.

Sel.
'Twas victory, day by day:
'Twas victory till, the appetite itself
Satiate with triumphs, in our host remained
Nought but the base uxorious homeward craving.
The Indus and Hydaspes we had crossed,
The Hydraotes and the Acecines;
Then, as a gathering tide, or desert flame
That nearer draws, was heard a deepening murmur
And as on banks of Hyphasis we stood
That murmur found a voice. The army sware
To march no farther east. The king but smiled,
And bade them make encampment, and take rest.
Next day, at noon, he flung that strength of words,
Upon them which till then they ne'er withstood,
And, ceasing, looked around with eye ablaze.
Then first I saw a wonder in that face:
He gazed, and passed into his tent alone;
There lonely sat three days. The silence 'twas
Taught him the host's resolve.

Amy.
What held it silent?

Sel.
Fate, or the reverence of remorseful gods
That knew their man. That Indian Seer at last
Made good his way into the royal tent:
What passed none knows. At eve the king gave word:—
Ere long we sailed a-down Hydaspes' flood.

Ant.
Hydaspes never saw a sight like that!
An army on each side, and, in the midst,
Two thousand ships!

Peu.
Forests were felled to build them!
The winds will miss their playmates many an age.
The nations shivered that beheld our coming,
Sibas, Ossadian, Sogdian, Sudracæ;—
The Malli fought the best.

Sel.
The world's great scales
Trembled that day! Our king—I see him still—
By him three friends—a host of foes in front!
'Twas you that saved him!

Peu.
'Twas that Argive shield
In fortunate hour plucked from the Trojan fane.
I held it high: it triumphed!

Sel.
Down we sailed
To the ocean flood, and made our vows, and buried
The sacrificial goblet in the wave.
Next, month by month we tracked Gedrosian sands:
The army of Semiramis slept beneath them,
The army of great Cyrus. Thousands died:
The rest pushed on. At last green-girt Carmania
Embowered us in her ever-flowering vales;
And, chapleted with vine, westward we sped,
Till, past all hope, we kenned our fleet and clasped
Old comrades mourned as dead.

Ptol.
We have told our story,
And made an honest boast. Our toils have rest:
Not less the king may find that peace hath dangers
Worse than the worst in war.

Ant.
The gods are with him.

Sel.
The gods of Greece are with him, but not all;
And gods can change, like men.

Ant.
'Tis true! let none
That's pious trust the gods, however friendly,
But, sharp-eyed watch and serve them.

Phy.
O ye gods!
I'll keep a dog to help me at my watch,
Noting your humours! Lords, if danger threaten,
'Tis Persia breeds that danger. Orxines—
There was a Persian, noble, brave, their richest
Satrap of Persis, faithful to our king—
He's dead, and by the king's command, and wherefore?

‘He (Alexander) was strangely disturbed in mind when he came to understand what havock had been made of the tomb of Cyrus, which, as Aristobulus tells us, he found rifled and broken in pieces. This tomb was placed in the Royal Gardens at Pasargadæ, and round it was planted a grove of all kinds of trees: the place also was well watered, and the surface of the earth all round clothed with a beautiful verdure. The basis thereof consisted of one large stone of a quadrangular form. Above was a small edifice with an arched roof of stone, and a door, or entrance, so very narrow that the slenderest man could scarce pass through. Within this edifice was the golden coffin, wherein the body of Cyrus was preserved, as also the bed whose supporters were of massy gold curiously wrought; the covering thereof was of Babylonian tapestry; the carpets underneath of the finest wrought purple. . . . The inscription, which was wrote in the Persian language, was to this purpose: “O mortal, I am Cyrus, the son of Cambyses, founder of the Persian monarchy, and Sovereign of Asia. Grudge me not therefore this monument.”’—Arrian, translated by Rooke, vol. ii. p. 132.

Why, 'twas a cry from bones, from offal, dust!
We passed Pasargadæ upon our march:
We found the tomb of Cyrus sack'd for gold:—
A crime they called it—named it some strange name—
'Twas sacrilege!

Ptol.
Persia is not the danger:
He's vulnerable inly, not without,
Through that fierce will which makes of wrath a madness,
Turns love to doom. Hephestion's brave and wise;
He takes an ample sweep of virtues; still
In valour he's not greater than Seleucus,
Than Craterus in insight: yet the king
Holds him more precious than the total host:
Such love is peril: 'tis to keep two bodies,
Two separate tenements of one frail life,
And obvious each to Fortune's shaft—or Fate's.

Sel.
Phylax, what mean you by those twinkling eyes?
You are bright, yet dark. In you two Demons kiss
With love malign.

Phy.
Your pardon, mighty lord;
I smiled at perils bred from the affections:
I've heard of such ere now, but met them never.

A Messenger
(entering).
The council meets at sunset, lords.

Several Generals.

Make speed!

[They depart.
Phy.
Philotas, you were wiser than I knew!
“'Tis there he's vulnerable.” Hate is insight.

Scene II.—Palace at Susa.

Alexander, Hephestion.
Alex.
The time is come; you stare;—the time decreed;
Of Empire safe henceforth, or lost for ever:
With a fierce joy I clasp this chief of battles
Which dares me in my day of seeming peace.
What think you of my fortunes?

Heph.
More and more
They are like yourself: they wear a royal aspect.

Alex.
False! I am substance; and my fortunes hollow!
To keep that little handful of my Greeks
In girl-proud severance from the conquered world
A dream it was, a dream!

Heph.
You said so early.

Alex.
To dispossess them of that dream-dominion;—
I told you this must be:—Craterus—yourself—
Seleucus—all—conspired in one reply,
“The Greek will rather die.”

Heph.
We knew, and said it.

Alex.
I sought evasions; I deferred the time;
I marched to Scythia, then to India on,
Trusting that mellowing years might work a change.
Prerogatives I linked, yet kept apart,
To native hands conceding civil functions,
Reserving still the warlike for the Greek;
What find I now returning? Faction's fruits:
The cry comes up:—discords, corruptions, slaughters,
The honour of great houses violated,
Their lands laid waste—
These things must end: this missive comes to end them:
Three years ago I pledged my royal word
Asian recruits should stand at one with Greeks;
A month, and thirty thousand join my ranks:
Come weal, come woe, I keep my sacred pledge.

Heph.
All Greece will rise in storm.

Alex.
A storm shall meet it.

Heph.
Till now you have lived for ever in their praise.

Alex.
To breathe applauses is to breathe an air
Defiled by breath of men: I stand, and stood
On the mountain-tops, breathing the breath of gods.
Fear nought: I see my way. Those Asian Empires
Were things mechanic.

Heph.
Greek and Asian equalled,
The Greek supremacy has died at birth.

Alex.
You see but half. Equality, when based
On merit, means supremacy of Greek;
For mind is merit, and the great Greek mind
Supreme in nature's right. Our Greece shall rule
Like elemental gods with nature blent,
Yet not in nature merged.

Heph.
The first inception—

Alex.
I had foreseen it; and I'll have no first:
Three changes I have welded into one.
Thanks to Parmenio's death, the treasure's mine:
It buys an Empire's safety. Half my Greeks
Stagger beneath a load of debt: I'll pay it:
That's change the first. I'll wed the races next:
My bravest and my best—that's change the second—
Shall marry Asian maids, by me so dowered
As Hope had feared to hope. My generals, likewise,
Shall mate the noblest ladies in the land;
Which done, all war henceforth were household war.
At that high marriage-feast mine earlier pledge
Shall stand redeemed. Persian shall rise to Greek:
Ay, but Greek soldiers rise to Asian kings!
That's change the third. I blend these three in one.

Heph.
The gods inspired that scheme! Their help go with it!

Alex.
The gods are with me ever: but the Fates—
Those whom the immortals dread, I too may fear.

Heph.
Touching the gods, I mark in you a change:
At first you honoured much this Persian Faith,
A Faith that soared, and yet went deep, insisting
For ever on the oppugnancy divine
'Twixt Good and Ill, unlike those nymph-like Fancies,
Glad offspring of Hellenic poet-priests,
That, draped in Faith's grave garb, yet loosely zoned,
But glide above the surfaces of things,
And tutor us with smiles. That time is past.
You honour still Egyptian rites and Asian;
Persian no more.

Alex.
The man that founds an Empire
Must measure all things by the needs of Empire:
This Magian Faith will prove refractory:
That truth it claims to hold, and hold alone,
Burns in its eye, and eyes of them that serve it,
A portion of their never-quenchèd Fire:
Its spirit is the spirit of domination:
I'll own no Persian worship.

Heph.
Is this just?
You smile on Persia's court, upon its camp,
Its nobles, and its merchants, and its peasants;
Upon the noblest thing it hath you frown.
Its domination means that Truth should rule,
It seeks no thrones: you find no foe, but make one.

Alex.
'Tis so. I ever make my choice of foes
Not less than friends. I know this Faith must hate me:
Like it there's none: the rest at heart are brothers;
Their priests alike contented to be ruled,
Their rites not hard to reconcile. Moreover,
I know Calanus now: his Faith for me
Holds something Persia's lacks. The Indian Seer
Who scorns both kingly throne and beggar's cloak,
Contemplative unvested 'neath the palms,
Seems than the Magian more abstruse in lore
And seated farther back in lordlier depths
Of world-defying pride.

Heph.
His pride I doubt not:
When first you found him on the banks of Indus
In meditation 'mid his brethren throned,
They to the greeting of a king vouchsafed not
So much as this—the uplifting of their eyes.

Alex.
Not less he joined my march—though on conditions.

Heph.
The Indian's faith may soar as high as heaven:
His pride is narrow as the Cynic's tub.

Alex.
You hate Calanus.

Heph.
What I love is Truth
'Tis great: and therefore humbleness must win it,
Not pride, if won at all.

Alex.
We know but this—
We walk upon a world not knowable
Save in those things which least deserve our knowing.
Yet capable, not less, of task sublime.
My trust is in my work: on that I fling me,
Trampling all questionings down.

Heph.
From realm to realm
You have chased the foe like dreams.

Alex.
I sometimes think
That I am less a person than a power,
Some engine in the right hand of the gods,
Some fateful wheel that, rolling round in darkness,
Knows this—its work; but not that work's far scope.
Hephestion, what is life? My life, since boyhood,
Hath been an agony of means to ends:
An ultimate end I find not. For that cause,
On-reeling in the oppression of a void,
At times I welcome what I once scarce brooked,
The opprobrium of blank sleep—
Enough of this. Discoursing of my plan
I passed unnamed its needfullest part: you guess it:
My marriage must inaugurate the rest,
And yours, with mine: our captains, one and all,
Will shape their course by yours.

Heph.
I understand not.

Alex.
Brothers till now we are not save in love:
Within our children's veins one blood shall flow,
Children of sisters. Now you know my meaning.

Heph.
I hear a music as of gods borne nigh;
See nought.

Alex.
The scheme's not policy alone:
'Tis expiation likewise. Hearken, Hephestion:
Above the body of Darius dead
I vowed to reinstate his Royal House,
My own just rights secured, nor hid my vow,
Sending that holy corse to Sisygambis,
The mother of the murdered, for the tomb.
Of those fair sisters—children then they were—
I chose the younger, destining my crown
For her fair brows. Arsinbe to you
(I named her once, but thought the theme unwelcome)
My fancy gave. I find this may not be:
Old Persia rests on laws immutable:
The eldest daughter of the Royal House
Must share the oldest throne on earth, and chief,
Except her sire's. A marriage less than this
To Persia were a stain, to Greece a weakness.
These things are nought. The maids are good alike:
You'll have the lovelier bride, the nobler I
In Asian heraldry. That setting sun
Dazzles my eyes, or else you're pale, Hephestion,
You that paled never 'mid Gedrosian sands:—
We buried many there. Deny the army
The lists of the dead.

Sel.
(entering).
So please the king, his council—

Alex.
I shall divulge this marriage to the council,
And show this missive from the agèd queen
So lofty, sad, yet grateful. I had forgotten:—
Those spoils that Xerxes filched, those statues twinned
That shine in brass before the palace portals,
Harmodius and Aristogeiton styled,
(I deem them unauthentic, like the merit
Of those seditious boors whose names they boast)
To Athens send, ordaining for their site
Great Theseus' temple. Be it done ere morn.

[Alexander departs, followed by Seleucus.
Heph.
'Twas all but won: 'tis lost, and lost for ever!
To her no loss: she knew not of my love:
I half foresaw, and sent her never message.
'Twas but a child! Ah yes, yet childish eyes
Shining through darkness could illume my dreams,
Star-like could pierce the low-hung battle-cloud,
In victory's hour could wake in me a heart
Tenderly righteous. Palace of Old Tyre!
Dark groves wherein the night-bird sang by day!—
'Twas but a child! Ah yes, yet childish hands
'Mid burning wastes could bind my brow with wreaths
Cold as the northern morn; a childish voice,
Still heard 'mid Lydian measures, could expel
Their venomed softness leaving them but plaintive.
Must all end thus? Oh mockery, mockery, mockery!
Shall one be zealous for my body's health,
Make inquisition of mine alter'd cheek,
Adventure to exalt that fame I laugh at,
The dignities I spurn, my golden fortunes,
Yet, there where only lives my spirit, lay
A hand more callous than his courser's hoof,
And crush that thing he feels not?—Down, base thoughts!
The crisis of his fortunes is upon him:
A perilous crisis; it may be a fatal.
I will not fail him at his utmost need:
His love is with me, though he knew me never—
Ill time were this, ill time for traitor's work!
Her duty's plain: necessity goes with it—
The thing that is must be.

Scene III.

Phylax (alone).
Phy.
Hephestion is daily more hard of access. I
know not how I shall approach him near enough to
wind him in my toils. Ho! sirrah! [to his Page]
know
you any among them that attend on Hephestion?

Page.
Sir, there is among them a youth, Peitho
by name, one with as many humours as a monkey.
Many a time hath he kept the suitors of Hephestion
waiting three hours in the ante-room while we played
at games.

Phy.
Play with him to-morrow, and lose. Give
him these gold pieces. Tell him that thy master hath
heard much of his trustiness, and holds him in
esteem. Bid him come here at his leisure, and play
games with thee.

Scene IV.—Palace at Susa.

Sisygambis, the Magian Astar.
Ast.
Madam, fear nought: she'll know the right and do it:
The maid's no Greek, nimble of spirit but small:
Her mind is spacious, and her heart is strong:
In all things still she sees the thing essential.
Such is the royal nature.

Sis.
For this marriage
The royal in her nature is against it:
She neither loves the Greek nor leans to marriage.
She's younger than her years, tho' when a child
Seemingly older.

Ast.
Madam, in high courage
She's older than her mother at her death,
And less through weakness of her sex dependent.
She will not wreck the realm.

Sis.
She comes: farewell.
[Astar departs. Arsinoe enters, and, after kneeling, sits at the feet of Sisygambis.
O large and lustrous eyes through tears up-gazing,
What find you in these agèd eyes of mine,
Murky and dim, these wan, discrownèd brows,
Worthy such sweet regard? Large eyes, gaze on!
You see dead Persia and her fallen House:
Their monument am I.

Ars.
Mother! my mother!

Sis.
That name you gave me when your mother died:
It reach'd me first from younger lips than yours:
It was not mine to kiss those lips in death:
Another closed those eyes.

Ars.
Mother! my mother!

Sis.
To them that with officious zeal presumed
Whispering of comfort, thus I made reply,
“He died contending for this Persian realm:
Comfort, save that, I spurn.”

Ars.
Though earth were ashes
That comfort still remains. We needs must weep;
We need not fear, methinks, nor hate, nor murmur.

Sis.
The strongest hand of earth let fall the sceptre:
The wide world shuddered like a shrine profaned:
Then from the gulf there rose a voice, “That sceptre
A slender hand shall lift from out the dust.”
The voice was low. I heard it and survived.

Ars.
Whose hand?

Sis.
The hand that lies across my knees:
This missive's heavy with a royal suit:
The Greek king claims that hand.

Ars.
He claim it!—Never!

Sis.
Then from a Persian hand comes Persia's doom:
This bridal had restored her Royal House.

Ars.
It was the Greek king laid it low, my mother.

Sis.
That laid it low, and now that fain would raise it:
The Greeks have given consent.

Ars.
The Greeks consent!
The Greeks! The Greeks dispose of Persia's daughters!
I'd have them nor for arbiters nor subjects!
Of all those Greeks, I know but one, one only,
Not shallow, loud, ignoble and untrue—
Hephestion; him who charmed for us at Tyre
Sadness to peace. Mother, if he has sisters
I think they are hard to win.

Sis.
He weds your sister.

Ars.
Hephestion weds my sister!

Sis.
Woos her and weds her.
You love your sister: does her marriage please you?

Ars.
I know not.

Sis.
Or perhaps displease?

Ars.
I know not.

Sis.
These marriages must be, or both, or neither:
By Persia's law the princess eldest-born
Mustfill earth's proudest throne: that throne is yours—
Unless you spurn it, yours. The king is proud:
The king's one friend will teach you how to win him
And make him father of this fallen realm:
Your sister's husband needs must be your brother.

Ars.
There's sweetness in that thought. Oh mother, mother!

Sis.
Now that your hands are shifted from your face
The pallor's less.

Ars.
Oh mother! Spare to urge me!
Scarce for love's sake, methinks, could I surrender
That maiden life, so holy, calm, and clear:
I cannot wed, not loving.

Sis.
I have done.
The nobly-modest usage of the East
Left marriages to parents. Yours are dead:
And therefore you are free.
This day a pact is broken with a grave:
It was a dead king, not a king that lives,
Who made this marriage: in his death he conquered:
Earth's victor stood above a shape sword-pierced:
A stricken shape he stood, a paler shape;
He saw the royal blood, the blood of Persia,
And lo, the conqueror changed to penitent:
That hour he vowed, suspending his advance,
To chase the murderer's steps from land to land
Thenceforth avenger. This too, this he vowed,
To set thy race, Darius, on thy throne
Partaken, not usurped. The tidings reached me,
Child, with your father's corse.

Ars.
'Tis past! My father!
Forgive this base deserter of thy blood,
Trivial impugner of thy sacred will,
Withstander of thy country's peace and greatness!
My mother, write—write quick—that I consent.

[Arsinoe moves to a window. The Queenmother writes. As her letter is finished Arsinoe returns.
Sis.
You've been a gazer on our Persian heavens:
The stars are in your face. 'Tis sad no more.

Ars.
The tears which I should weep are bright on yours.

Sis.
Age frets at all. Whoe'er had been your husband
It may be I had wept. Persia is saved.

Scene V.—Susa.

Alexander, Calanus.
Alex.
Father, think well of it. Our Faith offends you.

Cal.
'Tis a child's babble: and a child were he
That either loved or loathed it. Wisdom's sons—
None else in things divine have serious part—
Can mark the shadows dance upon the dust,
With brow that knows no change.

Alex.
I am not Greek,
Though king of Greeks. My race belongs to Greece
Of the kingly age alone. Commend you Persia?

Cal.
A priest of Persia bows his head to kings.
One time their Magians, at a king's command,
Linked with their order one who was a Greek,
Themistocles by name. Their wisdom's earthly:
Their Faith is but a law, and not a thought:
They make their God a king, give him a rival,
An Ahriman with Ormuzd still at feud,
Vexing with war the everlasting Rest,
The One Existence in and under all,
For all things else but seem, and are illusions,
The Intelligence unmoved whose thoughts are things,
Who dreams, and worlds are made.

Alex.
Is Egypt nobler?

Cal.
Egypt had wisdom once: her kings have slain it;
With them her priests connived; the guiltier far:
They shared with kings; and government was all.
Egypt is but a kingdom; kingdoms pass:
A race alone survives. Son, what wouldest thou?

Alex.
A single kingdom one o'er all the earth.

Cal.
So much of earth as shall suffice for grave
Is man's, my son—no more. The on-striding foot
No whither tends. The way is up, not onward.
Ten years you have wasted conquering half the world.

Alex.
Ay! Time is needed. There's the pang—none sharper!

Cal.
Eternity alone from Time can free you;
One step can lodge you in her changeless realm:
There from the palm eternal drops no scale:
The ambrosial rose never lets fall a leaf:
The ever-setting sun is never set:—
That realm is Thought. My son, you have won your kingdom:
Spurn it, and live.

Alex.
But half my task is finished.
Once wrought—

Cal.
You'd be a god on earth, and do
What God has left undone. The external world
To the end must be a world of blind confusions,
Some little curbed by little chiefs and kings,
With others who in industries cognate
Partake with these. Be still: the Eternal Patience
Preserves that world the Eternal Thought creates.

Alex.
(after a pause).
How many are your lesser deities?

Cal.
Their number's infinite. Divinity
Had ne'er been plural else. A finite number
Would spawn us idols.

Alex.
They are less than Brahm?

Cal.
Less than his priests, my son, of whom am I.
Men know us not. Of old the patriarch Brahmins
Sat in still groves, their flocks their kingdoms then,
For man was then a Household, not a Realm,
And lived for their Creator, not for things.
When riot filled the earth, and lust, and war,
These from the embraces of the race depraved
Severed their sons. They dwelt apart revered
Even by the vile. What man first was, we are:
We keep our heritage and know not change:

The inferior castes fell from us.

[Craterus enters.
Alex.
I must leave you.

Cal.
I claim your pledge. You're in my debt a pyre.

Alex.
What mean you?

Cal.
King, you sware to speed me home:
My body fails: my spirit's freedom nears me:
The God I serve rejects reluctant guests.
I mount that pyre alive: the finite atom
Rejoins the infinite.

Alex.
A pride there is
That dwarfs the pride of kings. Calanus, live!
Your pupil, not your king, kneels to implore you.

Cal.
I have taught you nought.

Cra.
I see it in his eye:
His will is fix'd.

Alex.
(rising).
I'll have no part in this:
Craterus, subdue that overweening will;
Win him to live:—but still revere my pledge.

[Departs.

Scene VI.—A Terrace of the Queen-mother's Palace at Susa.

Arsinoe, Hephestion.
Ars.
You knew her: that is well.

Heph.
Who knew your mother
Till death shall reverence woman's kind. In her,
Though doubly-dowered, a mother and a queen,
There lived a soft perpetual maidenhood,
An inexperienced trust, timid, yet frank,
Shy, yet through guilelessness forgetting shyness.
She seemed a flower-like creature come to fruit:
She moved among her babes, an elder sister;
Then, wakened by an infant cry or laugh,
Full motherhood returned.

Ars.
Had you but known her
In later days, and in her deeper woe!
It nought embittered her. Flower-like you called her:
She was a flower that sweetened with like breath
The darkness and the day: she turned from none:
Her heart was liberal in accepting comfort
Such as the least might minister. In griefs
She died; but not from grief.

Heph.
It was her death
That changed you first to grave?

Ars.
Not that alone;
The guidance of her orphans fell to me,
And taught me soon my weakness. You, Hephestion,
Have known severer labours, cares more stern;
Have won great battles; captured mighty cities;
You—none but you—could knit those rival chiefs:—
“His weight of duties seemed but weight of wings,”
The king spake thus.

Heph.
His fortunes were the wind
That raised those wings aloft.

Ars.
You owe him much.

Heph.
You think so? Ha!

Ars.
You loved him; and you served him:
What kindness equals this—to accept our aid?
What anguish bitterer than the aid rejected?
He told me of a fame so wide—

Heph.
I spurn it!
To me 'twas ever little: now 'tis nought.

Ars.
You praise him; yet you will not I should praise him:
I praise him ill in truth. The king was kind:
He sent me ofttimes greeting. You sent none:—
“Children,” thus mused I, “seem so soon forgotten.”

Heph.
I see a glare in the sky. What light is that?

Ars.
Our Persian moon, ascending, sends before her
A splendour as of morn.

Heph.
The sun sets red:
The heaped clouds totter round his burning halls
Like inward-tumbling bulwarks of a city
Consumed by flames of war—by earthquake rocked—
Twin dooms!—I would—

Ars.
Hephestion, look not on them:
They fling upon your face a threatening light,
Hiding that face I knew. Beside me stand:
Watch we that moon. The West is like the past;
The East grows bright; the eternal hope is hers.
We stand between these two. Your hand is hot:
Your tasks consume you: pray you to remit them!
My prayer will soon have won a bolder right:
Your king, that knew not of my young ambition,
Has crowned it, as you know.

Heph.
The crown? You sought it!

Ars.
To be your sister was that young ambition—
One to a child so gentle, to a woman
Must needs be gentler, sister of his wife,
And wife of one far less his king than friend:
You'll make me know him, teach me how to serve him,
My censor, yet my brother.

Heph.
Oh my sister!
The ambitions of this world could ne'er be yours:—
The doubt's not there. Arsinoe, are you happy?

Ars.
Is happiness much worth? I am at peace.

Heph.
Youth craves delight.

Ars.
Not always. If in others
We deem the greediness for joy ignoble,
Almost immodest, what were it in me?
I am the daughter of a fallen house:
My father died deserted and betrayed,
Vanquished, discrowned, with none but foes for mourners:
My mother— Oh, Hephestion, it were sin
In me to crave delight!

Heph.
Unceasing vigils,
Unsparing labours, dangers, ay, and worse,
Domestic treasons—these have been the lot
Of him you wed. The immeasurable soul
That in him, sea-like, swells to the light sustains him:—
The afflictions which he feels not for himself,
You needs must feel and fear.

Ars.
Feel them I may:
I know not if I ever feared; I think
I never shall. Fear not for me, Hephestion.
Not wholly sorrows were the sorrows past:
Those that must come will not be wholly sorrows.
Oh, there's a sweetness spread o'er all the earth
Grief's trampling foot makes sweeter! Stormiest clouds
Sweep on in splendour to some heavenly music
By us unheard. Hephestion, I can trust
That Power who will not always keep His secret:
The life He sends must needs, though sad, be great;
The death he sends be timely. Life is peace
To those who live for duty. Purer peace
Will find us after death.

Heph.
The moon is risen:
I see it not, but see you in its light
Like some young warrior, silver-mailed and chaste;
Or liker yet to her, my childhood's wonder,
Great Artemis, as I saw her statue first
Against the broad full moon, while snows high heaped
Ridged her dark wintry porch. Farewell, Arsinoe!
There was a mist that brooded on my spirit:
That mist is raised. To you no ill can come
That virtue will not change to its own essence:
Your life, if long, will prove a glorious life;
If short—you wish it short—revive in glory:
The king will give you of his great, strong heart
What he can spare to woman, and revere
More than he loves. He honoured once your Faith:
Would it were his!

Ars.
I think that will not be.

Heph.
My tasks are heavy now: until this marriage
We meet not oft.

Ars.
See you that grove, Hephestion,
Still dark, yet glistening in the ascended moon?
A grave lies there that covers one you knew.
She was my friend. My heart was held to hers
So oft in watches of the long, sweet night
And couch partaken, that a part thereof
Went down with her into that grave. One day
Beside that spot we spake: she died soon after.
She sent to you a message. We will sit
The eve before this bridal by that grave.
Something I'll tell you of her; but not much;
Show you a book of Persian songs that pleased her;
And haply read you one. Till then farewell.

Scene VII.—Susa. The Gate of the Bridal Pavilion.

A crowd of Greeks and Asiatics.
A Greek Soldier.

2nd Greek Soldier.

A Bactrian.

2nd Greek Soldier.

3rd Greek Soldier.

A Persian Barber.

Barber's Wife.

The Sentinels.

[Generals walk out in procession, wearing crowns, Seleucus and Ptolemy first.
Sel.
A sight for gods! That last libation paid,
Each feaster lifting still his hand, on the sudden
A sunbeam smote along the golden cups,
Till half the chamber flashed from end to end
Like the sun's path o'er sea!

Ptol.
Far things I saw not:
My place was on the dais, near the queen.
The strong eye of the king made inquest ever,
As when, ere fight, it roams the battle-field,
Around the hall. Courteous and kind, though grave,
Hephestion reassured a startled bride,
And on a face, whose smiles with tears were spangled,
Made light at last prevail. She sat at first
Heart-wildered—yet amused; her roe-like eyes
The darker for the paleness of her cheeks
And garland-shaded brows. The feast not over,
Peace came to her through trust in him close by:
Wife-love had made a seven years' growth.

Sel.
Arsinoe?

Ptol.
Nor startled she, nor pensive, glad or sad:
She looked like one who, some deep chasm o'erpassed,
Sits thenceforth safe; who—all things sacrificed—
Within their monumental urn retains them
Securer for that funeral prison cold,
Or else in some far hope.

(A cry, “Way for the king!”)
[Alexander issues forth, attended by Craterus and Asian princes. The Persians kneel as he passes: the Greeks stand.
Alex.
Rejoice, ye men of Maced on and Persia:
Two realms this day are joined as body and soul:—
Craterus, I miss Calanus.

Cra.
Sir, he's dead.
He sent for me last eve, at set of sun,
Demanding swift fulfilment of your pledge,
Or else you were forsworn. Ere rose the day
On whose white brow I wished no shade to fall,
The pyre had reached its height; but he who claimed it
Refused to issue from his cloud of thought
Till noon had come.

Alex.
I marked a smoke at noon,
Susa in sight, upon my homeward way:
Relate the order of your grim proceeding.

Cra.
The rites were his of Indian death when proudest.
First in the death-procession was a horse
Snow-white, of breed Nisæan; next, slave-borne,
The jewelled vases, and the robes, your gifts;
Calanus, in his litter, last, flower-crowned,
With old white head clear shining in the sun,
And chaunting hymns. King-like the man dispersed,
The pyre attained, your gifts among his friends,
And bade them with a cheerful face and strong
Rejoice till night. King-like he clomb the pyre;
In the host's sight he waved his hand—then sank.
The elephants shrilled sharp; the trumpets pealed;
The flames rushed up. We saw that hand no more.

Alex.
He sent me no farewell.

Cra.
Your pardon, sir:
His last was this:—“Commend me to the king:
Tell him we meet once more at Babylon.”

Alex.
Ill day he chose; and spleenful his departure:
A man should lack not manners in his death:
His parting words excuse him: he was mad:
“At Babylon”—he's dead, and ne'er will see it;
Nor I, who live. I ever hated ruins.

Scene VIII.—Opis, on the Tigris.

Large bodies of soldiers assembled before a platform occupied by Alexander's Generals.
1st Soldier.

An Officer.

2nd Soldier.

1st Soldier.

2nd Soldier.

1st Soldier.

A Mede.

Soldiers.
(Striking their daggers through him.)

[A cry, “Push forward; the king has arrived.”]
Alex.
Ye sons of Macedon and Greece, attend:
'Tis rumoured there are still among you debtors:
A debtor is a slave: who serves his king
Must serve in freedom. I discharge those debts.

A Mutineer.
He must not be suffered to speak.

Alex.
You are mostly strong; but some are men in years,
War-wearied and outworn. Would any homeward?
At home they shall not sit abjects in age,
But largess-laden say to those that praise them,
“The ranks wherein our glorying manhood toiled
Are open still to all.”

A Ringleader of the Mutineers.

[Thirteen ringleaders are lifted up on the shoulders of the crowd, and wave standards.

---

118

A cry is raised on all sides. “Send us all home, since you need us no longer. Go to war with none to help you save Zeus, your father!”]
Ptol.
(to Alexander).
They'll turn on you, like hunds upon the huntsman!

[Alexander leaps down among the crowd, followed by his Generals. They seize the thirteen ringleaders, and drag them up the steps of the platform.
Alex.
Speed! To this headless rabble give their heads!
[The Generals fling the heads of the ringleaders among the mutineers.
Stand back! I go alone: let none attend me.

[Alexander takes his stand on a low part of the platform, level with the heads of the crowd.
Alex.
Ye swine-herds, and ye goat-herds, and ye shepherds,
That shamelessly in warlike garb usurped
Cloak your vile clay, my words are not for you;
There stand among you others, soldiers' sons,
Male breasts, o'er-writ with chronicles of wars,
To them I speak. What made you that ye are
The world's wide wonder and the dread of nations?
Your king! What king? Some king that ruled o'er lands
Illimitable, and golden-harvested
From ocean's rim to ocean? Sirs, 'twas one
With petty realm, foe-girt and cleft with treasons,
Dragged up from darkness late and half alive.
From these beginnings I subdued the earth:—
For whom? For you! The increase is yours: for me
Whose forehead sweated and whose eyes kept watch,
Remains the barren crown and power imperial.
I found but seventy talents in my chest:
Full many a soldier with his late-spoused bride
Gat better dower. I found within my ports
A fleet to Persia's but as one to ten;
I sold my royal farms and built me ships;
I found an army lean as winter wolves
On Rodope snow-piled; I changed to bread
My sceptre's gems and fed it. Forth from nothing
I called that empire which this day I rule.
My father left me this—his Name: I took it
And kneaded in the hollows of my hands:
I moulded it to substance, nerved it, boned it;
I breathed through it my spirit to be its life;
Clothed it with vanquished nations, sent it forth
Sworded with justice, wisdom for its helm,
The one just empire of a world made one.
Forget ye, sirs, the things ye saw—the States
Redeemed of Lesser Asia, our own blood,
The States subdued, first Syria, then Phœnicia,
Old Tyre the war-winged tigress of the seas,
And Egypt next? The Pyramids broad-based
Descrying far our advent rocked for fear
Above their buried kings: Assyria bowed:
The realm of Ninus fought upon her knees
Not long: the realm of Cyrus kissed the dust:
From lost Granicus rang the vanquished wail
To Issus: on Arbela's plain it died.
Chaldæa, Persis, Media, Susiana—
We stepped above these corpses in our might
To Parthia, and Hyrcania, Bactriana,
And Scythia's endless waste—
The cry from Paromisus gave response
To Drangiana's dirge: thy doom, Aria,
To wan-faced Acherosia spake her own:
In vain the Indian Caucasus hurled down
From heaven-topped crags her floods to bar my way:
Flood-like we dashed on valleys known till then
To gods, not men, of Greece. Bear witness, ye
Aornos, from thine eagle-baffling crest
Vainly by Hercules himself assailed,
Plucked down by us; and Nysa, Bacchus-built,
When Bacchus trod the East. What hands were those
Which from the grove Nysæan and fissured rocks
Dragged the green ivies? Whose the brows that wore them?
Whose lips upraised the Bacchus-praising hymn?
Whose hands consummated his work—restored
To liberty and laws the god-built city?—
Sirs, the vile end of all is briefly told.
We pierced the precinct of the Rivers Five,
Indus, and other four. The jewelled crowns
Of those dusk sovereigns fell flat before us:
The innumerous armies opened like the wind
That sighs around an arrow, while we passed:
Those moving mountains, the broad elephants,
Went down with all their towers. We reached Hydaspes:
Nations, the horizon blackening, o'er it hung:—
Porus, exult! In ruin thine were true;
While mine, in conquest's hour, upon the banks
Of Hyphasis—What stayed me on my way?
An idiot army in mid victory dumb!
I gave them time; three days: those three days past,
Ye heard a voice, “The gods forbid our march:”
Sirs, 'twas a falsehood! On the Olympian height
That day the immortal concourse crouched for shame:
Their oracles were dead. 'Twas I that spake it!
I was, that hour, the Olympian height twelve-throned
That hid the happy auspice in the cloud,
And this mine oracle; “Of those dumb traitors
Not one shall wash his foot in Ganges' wave.”
I built twelve altars on that margin, each
A temple's height, and fronting eastward—why?
To lift my witness 'gainst you to the gods!
Once more as then I spurn you, slaves! Your place
Is vacant. Time shall judge this base desertion
Which leaves me but the conquered to complete
The circle of my conquests. Gods, it may be,
Shall vouch it holy, men confirm it just;—
Your places in the ranks are yours no more.

[Alexander departs, attended by his Generals.
1st Mutineer.

2nd Mutineer.

3rd Mutineer.

4th Mutineer.

Scene IX.—Ecbatana. The House of Phylax.

Phy.
(to his Page).

Scene X.—Postern of the Great Temple at Ecbatana.

A Soldier
(approaching it).

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Soldier.

Sentinel.

Scene XI.—The Great Temple at Ecbatana.

Alexander, his Generals, and the Magnates of his Empire, Greek and Asiatic.
Alex.
I greet you, lords of every race alike
And every nation, joined henceforth in one:
Well meet we in old Media's mother-city,
And fair the omen. Lords, that doubt which dogged
My steps, extinguished with revolt extinguished,
My fortunes touch at last their zenith height
And sail among the stars. The future waits us.
'Tis rumoured that my face is toward the West:
There's time enough for that. Limit and Term
Govern the world. Completion of my work
Here in the orient inchoate needs ten years
Which past will leave me still a man in prime.
India of Ganges yet remains to conquer:
We have still to stud with western colonies
Our eastern realms, to light them with Greek schools,
And link our Indian with our Persian thrones
By politic commerce. Lords, I have given command
To free insulted Tygris from her dykes,
Built up by kings who feared both trade and freedom.
I have sent Nearchus to the Arabian coasts
To burn the pirates' ships and drown their crews:
Indus shall wed Euphrates, devious thence
Shall brim Orontes, and make broad Ilissus.
A word on Greece: Craterus makes speed to her:
Antipater, that ruled in Macedon,
Shall yield him place and here reply to charges
That touch both fame and life. I smiled to hear
That, militant against our Persian pomps,
He wears plain raiment edged with border grey
Alike at banquet and on judgment-throne:
His purple is within! I trust 'tis false
He traffics with the Ætolians: trust 'tis falser
That when, by sentence of the assembled host,
The long time nameless ruler of this city
Who filled of old yon seat—now vacant—died,
He said, “Parmenio false! then who is true?
Parmenio falsely slain! then who is safe?”
These things I nought prejudge. To weightier matters.
We send this day to Greece two great decrees;
The first, amid the Olympian games proclaimed,
Shall spread a general gladness. It remands
All exiled citizens to their ancient homes
Save those convict of sacrilege or murder,
And wins us friends in every Grecian state.
The last demands for me that titular meed
Decorous wont of ceremonial worship,
Which, not alone an offspring of the gods,
But likewise upon mortals well-deserving
Though wanting Death's immortalizing touch,
Confers mankind's award—honours divine.
Lords, ere this council separates — (Turning to Perdiccas)
Where's Hephestion?

Per.
Hephestion, sir, is slightly fever-touched
And keeps his house.

Alex.
Command that Phylax tend him.
Hephestion's much for peace, and willed this day
In speech to praise it: that shall serve to-morrow:
Till then my further purpose I withhold.
This day the Feast of Dionysus rules:
He played me false the night that Cleitus died;
The rights of the Dioscuri that night
Supplanted his: in that no part was mine;
But kings remember benefits alone:—
At Thebes, his chiefest seat, I did him wrong:
I do repent that slaughter Lords, farewell!

Scene XI.—Ecbatana.

Phylax and his Page.
The Page.

Phy.
It is well: depart!
[The Page retires.]