University of Virginia Library

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.

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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.