The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Alexander on his throne surrounded by his Generals. The nobles of Babylon and the neighbouring provinces are ranged round the hall.
Alex.
I have had enough of councils. We'll be brief:
The Grecian embassies shall take precedence
In the order of their temples' dignity,
First Elis, Delphi second, Corinth third.
Whence come the others?

Eum.
Sire, from Carthage one;
She sinned with Tyre: four from Italian States,
The Bruttians, the Lucanians, the Tyrrhenians,
And that new city, Rome.

Alex.
A bandit's den!
Its earliest citizens were robber tribes;
And, faithful to their past, they are leagued this day

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With Antium's pirates. Drive them home! One day
They'll know a Grecian heel. To the work in hand.
Princes of long-dejected Babylon
That yearly bent her brow more near the ground,
Rejoice! her days of mourning are gone by.
I had decreed never to see this city,
Chief seat of Earth's first empire and her worst.
What changed that edict? Sirs, the advancing knowledge
That that true Empire shaped and made by me—
That Empire which, the hour Parmenio died,
I vowed, from Scythia marching on to India,
Should know no limit and no term—that Empire
High as the mind of man and wide as earth—
The knowledge that that Empire ne'er can die.
That knowledge mine, I willed to weld in one
The first link and the last in the chain of Empires;
Once here, the spirit of the past came o'er me:
The earliest seat of Empire claimed its right:
The on-flowing tide of power, 'gainst nature's law
At my command rolled back. A conqueror's hand,
Forgetting this, that victory should be just,
Was heavy on your nation, sirs, of old,
Grudged you your great Euphrates, sluiced it hence,
Dried up its city-channel: I restore it.
I have dug for you a harbour: Indian fleets
Therein shall sway their masts with lighter crafts
Freighted from Egypt, and our Grecian Isles
With help of broad canals from Syrian shores
By Grecian science planned, by Asian gold
'Mid deserts excavated. Yestereve
Your eyes beheld a pledge of this high future,
The meeting of two fleets, from India one,

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The other, recent from Ægean waves,
Dragged overland to Thapsacus, and thence
Launched on Euphrates' stream. Assyrian lords,
Your Babylon shall sit among her meads
An inland Tyre, secure: your Temple and Tower,
Passing the height of Egypt's pyramids,
Revindicate their state. He nothing erred
Who fixed of old in Babylon the seat
Of eastern Empire. Round her throne shall stand
Persepolis, Susa, and Ecbatana,
Handmaids, not rivals. In the West shall rise
Cities like these. Half-way! twixt East and West
In single majesty supreme o'er all
Shall Alexandria reign.

[Acclamation from all sides: “It is the voice of a god,” during which Cassander enters the hall. He approaches the king, but without making the customary “Adoration.”
Alex.
Who's he that enters like the forest beast
Irreverent, and unshamed? Remove the man.
[Cassander is forcibly removed.
The rest is brief. My purpose was—men knew it—
To spend ten years consolidating in peace
The eastern world. That purpose I discard:
I trust the years no more: presuming death
Strikes down the loftiest as the lowliest head,
Rendering no count. I seek the West at once.
West joined to East, and raised by subjugation,
Since to be wisely ruled alone is freedom,
Shall leave my work complete. Two mighty armies
Divide the triumph. Southward one shall coast
The midland sea through Egypt to Cyrene
And on through Lybia to the Atlantic deep;
Northward the other, from Illyria's shore

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To far Iberia's verge. From you I need
Fully fifty thousand soldiers in three months:
Your bravest. To subdue the West, and mould it,
Demands three years: for these the queen is regent,
Not more among my captains to rebate
Envy's fell tooth, than in requital just
Of royal gifts which I revere in her,
Enough. Call in those Grecian embassies.
[First enter the Envoys from the Greeks assembled at the Olympic games: the eldest speaks—
King, and our lord, the Greeks with reverence true,
Though not without misgiving, heard that edict
But lately from Ecbatana sent to them,
Remanding to their homes all Grecian exiles—

Alex.
Does Greece accept that ordinance?

Envoys
(with hesitation).
Greece accepts.
[Next, ambassadors from all the Greek States enter, habited like heralds deputed with offerings to temples. They advance to Alexander with golden crowns, and kneeling, lay them at his feet. The eldest speaks—
To Alexander, Philip's conquering son,
The States of Greece concede, unanimous,
Honours divine, and hail him as a god.

University of Virginia Library

Scene III.—Hall of the Palace of Babylon.