University of Virginia Library

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!