 | Song and Story |  |
96
A MOOD OF CLEOPATRA.
“Au temps de Cléopâtre ... on eût fait venir six ou cinq esclaves, mâles ou femelles, et l'on aurait essayé le poison sur eux; on aurait fait ce que les médecins appellent une expérience in anima vili. ... Une douzaine de misérables se seraient tordus comme des anguilles coupées en morceaux sur les beaux pavés de porphyre et les mosaïques étincelantes, devant la maîtresse ... suivant de son regard velouté les dernières crispations de leur agonie.”
Théophile Gautier.
Cleopatra, when the chilling fear
Of ruin touched her soul at ease,
When turbid sounds, blown over seas,
Would speed on rumor's rapid path
From the hot lips of Roman wrath
Straight to her own Egyptian ear,—
Then, even at some grand feast of hers,
Would seem to feel the joy struck dumb
Of citherns, harps and dulcimers,
With rumbling prelude, harsh to hear,
Of that which must in time become
Disaster, slavery, Actium!
Of ruin touched her soul at ease,
When turbid sounds, blown over seas,
Would speed on rumor's rapid path
From the hot lips of Roman wrath
Straight to her own Egyptian ear,—
Then, even at some grand feast of hers,
Would seem to feel the joy struck dumb
Of citherns, harps and dulcimers,
With rumbling prelude, harsh to hear,
97
Disaster, slavery, Actium!
Then she, that mighty and mystic queen,
Round whom her vassals crawled in awe,
Whose lifted finger was a law,
Whose smile an edict, and whose frown
A darkness on the lands between
Arabian wave and Libyan dust,
Whose name, tyrannic and august,
From marbleful Syene's town
On wings of wonderment flew down
The old sacred Nile and serpentine
North to Canopus and the sea,—
Cleopatra, couched at feast, even she,
In lovely sovereignty supine,
Would quiver with a sudden sigh,
And one imperious hand would raise
That bade the revel's music die,
And made, along its mighty maze
Of columned galleries grandly high,
A silence as of death to come
On all the vast triclinium!
Round whom her vassals crawled in awe,
Whose lifted finger was a law,
Whose smile an edict, and whose frown
A darkness on the lands between
Arabian wave and Libyan dust,
Whose name, tyrannic and august,
From marbleful Syene's town
On wings of wonderment flew down
The old sacred Nile and serpentine
North to Canopus and the sea,—
Cleopatra, couched at feast, even she,
In lovely sovereignty supine,
Would quiver with a sudden sigh,
And one imperious hand would raise
That bade the revel's music die,
And made, along its mighty maze
Of columned galleries grandly high,
A silence as of death to come
On all the vast triclinium!
“If I must die,” her thought would say,
“What way shall be the swiftest way?
What subtle drug shall give release
With slightest pain before it slay,
And make my conqueror find me here
As one who thrids in cavernous night
Some hypogeum's halls austere,
Expecting when his steps shall cease
Beside the uncrumbled cryptic peace
Of still sarcophagi, and when
He shall behold, with sharp delight,
With thrills of greed he shall behold,
The royal mummies lying rolled
In lordliest wealth against his sight,
Richly embalmed, these kings renowned,
In naphtha and bitumen bound:
But now he gains their bourne of sleep,
And sees their gilded coffers rise,
Stript of all wealth to clutch and keep,
Plundered and spoiled ere this by those
Who have dared in violative wise
To assault with strong and impious blows
The old awful slumbering Pharaohs.
Thus even shall he that finds me here
Find ruin of what I was alone,
The dumb bulk left, the life outflown,
Beyond all shadow of shame or fear,
Since Death can do whatso he please
With whoso he shall choose to strive,
But Roman hands, though quick to seize,
Can never manacle alive,
With wrist-gyve or with ankle-gyve,
The daughter of the Ptolemies!
“What way shall be the swiftest way?
98
With slightest pain before it slay,
And make my conqueror find me here
As one who thrids in cavernous night
Some hypogeum's halls austere,
Expecting when his steps shall cease
Beside the uncrumbled cryptic peace
Of still sarcophagi, and when
He shall behold, with sharp delight,
With thrills of greed he shall behold,
The royal mummies lying rolled
In lordliest wealth against his sight,
Richly embalmed, these kings renowned,
In naphtha and bitumen bound:
But now he gains their bourne of sleep,
And sees their gilded coffers rise,
Stript of all wealth to clutch and keep,
Plundered and spoiled ere this by those
Who have dared in violative wise
To assault with strong and impious blows
The old awful slumbering Pharaohs.
Thus even shall he that finds me here
Find ruin of what I was alone,
The dumb bulk left, the life outflown,
Beyond all shadow of shame or fear,
Since Death can do whatso he please
99
But Roman hands, though quick to seize,
Can never manacle alive,
With wrist-gyve or with ankle-gyve,
The daughter of the Ptolemies!
“Wherefore, if I must die one day,
How fleetest shall this flesh get peace?
What way shall be the swiftest way?
What subtle drug shall give release
With slightest pain before it slay?”
How fleetest shall this flesh get peace?
What way shall be the swiftest way?
What subtle drug shall give release
With slightest pain before it slay?”
Then would she clap her small swart hands,
And soon the obeisant slaves would bring
Rare cups and goblets, oddly wrought
With sculptured shapes in circling bands,
Or many a strange hieratic thing
Whereof these latter times and lands
Know either vaguely or know naught—
With Athor, Isis, one-armed Khem,
Snake, scarab, ibis, wingèd ball,
Quaint coptic anaglyph; and all
These vessels, to the brims of them,
With deadliest poisons had been fraught.
And soon the obeisant slaves would bring
Rare cups and goblets, oddly wrought
With sculptured shapes in circling bands,
Or many a strange hieratic thing
Whereof these latter times and lands
Know either vaguely or know naught—
With Athor, Isis, one-armed Khem,
Snake, scarab, ibis, wingèd ball,
Quaint coptic anaglyph; and all
These vessels, to the brims of them,
With deadliest poisons had been fraught.
Then slowly, through the hall's great space,
Where, statued in weird hybrid gloom,
With black claws crost in cold repose,
The lofty basalt sphinxes loom,—
Between the pillars huge of base
That might bear heaven, if so they chose,
On bulging chapiters that enthrone
Colossal lotos-leaves of stone,—
Before the queen, with timorous pace,
With groundward brow and quivering limb,
With horror on each haggard face,
They come, the slaves that are to die
Beneath Cleopatra's critic eye,
And pleasure so her sovereign whim.
Where, statued in weird hybrid gloom,
With black claws crost in cold repose,
100
Between the pillars huge of base
That might bear heaven, if so they chose,
On bulging chapiters that enthrone
Colossal lotos-leaves of stone,—
Before the queen, with timorous pace,
With groundward brow and quivering limb,
With horror on each haggard face,
They come, the slaves that are to die
Beneath Cleopatra's critic eye,
And pleasure so her sovereign whim.
They dare not make one lightest moan,
While ranging in a dreadful file
Before their slayer's icy smile.
They dare alone to cower and shrink;
Alone they dare to obey, alone
To grasp their goblets and be dumb;
For tortures worse than death might come,
Did they rebel in prayer and groan.
Some sweat with anguish as they drink;
Some totter and have bristling hair;
Some choke their bitter sobs, and some
Roll eyeballs awful with despair!
While ranging in a dreadful file
Before their slayer's icy smile.
They dare alone to cower and shrink;
Alone they dare to obey, alone
To grasp their goblets and be dumb;
For tortures worse than death might come,
Did they rebel in prayer and groan.
Some sweat with anguish as they drink;
Some totter and have bristling hair;
Some choke their bitter sobs, and some
Roll eyeballs awful with despair!
Poisons are here of taste and hue
Differing, yet each of baleful might;
For here is hellebore, aconite,
Henbane, euphorbia; these, and more
Known only in the years of yore.
Differing, yet each of baleful might;
101
Henbane, euphorbia; these, and more
Known only in the years of yore.
And all are drunken to the lees
By those poor minion lips accurst.
A fearful quiet falls at first
Over the doomed ones where they stand,
Till now they sink by sure degrees,
Form after stricken form, beneath
The smile so fathomlessly bland
Of the calm queen who hears and sees
Their anguish of the stiff crooked hand,
The writhen body and gnashing teeth,
The blackening tongues, the crimsoned eyes,
The foaming bloated lips, the cries
That up those monstrous galleries ring
In mad debauch of suffering!
By those poor minion lips accurst.
A fearful quiet falls at first
Over the doomed ones where they stand,
Till now they sink by sure degrees,
Form after stricken form, beneath
The smile so fathomlessly bland
Of the calm queen who hears and sees
Their anguish of the stiff crooked hand,
The writhen body and gnashing teeth,
The blackening tongues, the crimsoned eyes,
The foaming bloated lips, the cries
That up those monstrous galleries ring
In mad debauch of suffering!
Superb doth Queen Cleopatra sit,
The fragrant feast-flowers on her hair,
And o'er the shadowy waves of it,
Her crown imperially fair
For spikes of gold about the brows.
The delicate schenti that allows
Glimpses of her voluptuous shape,
Doth her firm bend of bosom drape,
And lightlier lies on her brown limbs
Than on some moonlit mountain's base
The gauziest vapor-wreath that swims.
From either side her languorous face
The fringy calisiris flows;
A gorget girds her olive throat,
Fantastic, beautiful to note,
Where clear-green chrysoberyl glows
Beside azedarach, in rows.
The fragrant feast-flowers on her hair,
And o'er the shadowy waves of it,
Her crown imperially fair
For spikes of gold about the brows.
The delicate schenti that allows
Glimpses of her voluptuous shape,
102
And lightlier lies on her brown limbs
Than on some moonlit mountain's base
The gauziest vapor-wreath that swims.
From either side her languorous face
The fringy calisiris flows;
A gorget girds her olive throat,
Fantastic, beautiful to note,
Where clear-green chrysoberyl glows
Beside azedarach, in rows.
One marvellous arm supports her head,
With dull gold six times braceleted,
As backward on the empurpled case
Of her Greek couch she leans at rest.
Her deepening smile hath half confest
That one thing yet holds power to please
Her tired soul pleasure-surfeited.
One thing: this riot of death she sees,
This pomp of human pangs unblest,
This revel of ghastly agonies!
With dull gold six times braceleted,
As backward on the empurpled case
Of her Greek couch she leans at rest.
Her deepening smile hath half confest
That one thing yet holds power to please
Her tired soul pleasure-surfeited.
One thing: this riot of death she sees,
This pomp of human pangs unblest,
This revel of ghastly agonies!
And so, while at her feet they writhe,—
While levelled of their torture sore
They grovel on the porphyry floor,
These slaves, whose life is almost less
In Egypt than to crush a gnat,—
Then (oh, strange change to wonder at!)
Cleopatra's smile turns bright and blithe,
Her eyelids lose their heaviness,
Her long deep eyes begin to shine,
And reaching one dark faultless hand
Where the gold festal goblets stand
Carved by Lysippus' rare finesse
In sculptures worthy hands divine,
For veriest joy her red mouth laughs,
As now with back-flung head she quaffs
The odorous white Mareotic wine!
While levelled of their torture sore
They grovel on the porphyry floor,
These slaves, whose life is almost less
103
Then (oh, strange change to wonder at!)
Cleopatra's smile turns bright and blithe,
Her eyelids lose their heaviness,
Her long deep eyes begin to shine,
And reaching one dark faultless hand
Where the gold festal goblets stand
Carved by Lysippus' rare finesse
In sculptures worthy hands divine,
For veriest joy her red mouth laughs,
As now with back-flung head she quaffs
The odorous white Mareotic wine!
| Song and Story | |