Scene I.—A Sea-cliff opposite New Tyre.
Alexander
(alone).
Wings without body! Such—no more—is Commerce
Which rests not upon Empire! Commerce, ruling,
Disperses man's chief forces; commerce ruled
By spirit heroic, yields increase of thoughts
That give a wider base to greatness. Tyre!
How soon thy golden feathers forth shall fly
Upon the storm of War! Lo, where she sits
Upon her rock, wave-girt, and turret-crown'd,
Gazing toward her western daughter, Carthage!—
Tyre of the ships! Phœnicia gave us letters,
Which are to mind as fingers to the hand,
And shape, dividing, Thought's articulate world:—
For Greece she found them, using them not herself;
Men stumble thus on glories not for them,
The rightful appanage of the capable.
The Empire which I found shall tread the earth,
Yet ever it go flying. From its vans
The twin-born beams of Grecian Song and Science
Shall send perpetual dawn. Hephestion, welcome!
Heph.
(joining him).
How long you gaze on yonder beaming sea!
It burns mine eyes like fire.
Alex.
It gladdens mine,
Being irradiate and illimitable.
Hephestion, hold this map,—the sea-wind curls it—
We'll find my City's site.
[After a pause.
Not Babylon,
That vilest of dead Empires—no, not that!
Not Nineveh: Persepolis stands too far:
Ecbatana's nought, and Susa's Persian only:
Byzantium well might serve if north were all.
In Egypt is the spot. 'Tis here! I have it!
Westward, beyond Pelusium. There the Euxine
Thaws in the hot winds from the Arabian Gulf:
There meet the east and west: dusk Indian kings
Thither shall send their ivory and their gold,
And thence to far Hesperia!
Heph.
I can see it:
Hard by Canobus stretches, long and thin,
Sharp, like an adder's tongue, a promontory—
Alex.
It guards the region's harbour, one and sole:
Thereon my world's great diadem shall rest:
On Alexandria's quays Greek and Egyptian
Shall join in traffic: through the populous streets
My Phalanx shall return from conquer'd lands;
There shall old Egypt lisp our Grecian tongue
The Phidian hand subdue the hieroglyph;
Athenè share with Isis! Hail, Seleucus!
A cloud is on your countenance.
Sel.
(arriving).
Alexander!
I have fought your battles, and I love you inly
But fawn on no man's follies. What is this?
Shall soldiers sweat and toil like beasts of burthen,
And I their task-master to pare the wage?
Month after month they toil, to make this causeway
'Twixt Ancient Tyre and New; our gallant steeds
That chased so oft the foe—
Alex.
'Tis well: three stadia
The causeway's made. Remains to make the fourth:
That done, we reach the gates of Tyre, and knock.
Sel.
The fourth is thrice the three for time and labour:
We're now in deepening water: from its rock
Yon city walls ascend two hundred palms:
Their arrows gall us: on their towers they raise
Huge furnaces.
Alex.
Seleucus, all is cared for;
Two thousand arms have striven three days and more
In controversy with the centuried pine
On Libanus; in four my towers shall stand
High as their towers, and make them large reply.
Return, my friend. Tell them their king, ere long,
Will lead them into Tyre. (Seleucus departs moodily.)
Mark you, Hephestion,
They're in one tale, Seleucus and the rest:
Seleucus loves me well, nor boasts himself:
Another's gloom it is that clouds his brow:
Parmenio hates this march to Tyre and Egypt:
His mind grows leaner than the threaded sails
Of yonder bark so worn the wind goes through them:
It holds no thought that's new. I count that man
My chief of dangers. 'Tis a desperate game:
I'll have no shrewish counsellor near, to shake
My soldiers' hearts with cavils.
Heph.
Old Parmenio
Is spleenful when he thinks: he's best in action.
Alex.
I, who defer not easily to facts
Which cross my purpose, see them when they're plain:
Those which confront me reason of themselves.
Demosthenes, the wonder-working voice,
In Athens roars against me. Lacedæmon
Pushes her horn, dull Agis, at my sides:
Strong-hearted Thebes remembers. In old time
But one Thersites stood 'mid many kings;
Therein, methinks, great Homer show'd his wit;
Those States are, each, Thersites, windier grown,
And I their monarch one and sole. If Persia
Should join with those, and fire the world behind me,
Advance were hard; retreat impossible.
Therefore I cleave from Persia Tyre and Egypt,
Their ports, their ships, harbours, and mariners;
So shall she turn her face from Greece, and I
Sleep without dream. I told Parmenio this.
Heph.
He answered?
Alex.
Still the old note—“Darius arms:
A year, and all his empire will be on you.”
Heph.
He boasts a million soldiers.
Alex.
Let them come!
A moiety of their numbers fought at Issus.
Let him bring up his empire's total strength:
Be it embattled, we will bring it under.
The enmity I fear is that which lurks
A dull swamp-fever in that people's veins
Which hates its lord because it scorns itself,
And, having striven but half, knows not its limit.
This is the hate which bides its time. A realm
Shall stand confuted in war's argument
Then when its say is said: well silenced, Time
Takes still the conqueror's side.
Heph.
Is there forgiveness
For conquerors?
Alex.
Ay; but for half conquerors, none.
The realms which earlier conquerors won, they stole,
Using for personal ends. What rule all glorious
That primal usurpation counterpoised?
What victories swathed the grub in light? What hand
Beneficent in sternness, or, if soft,
Parental, not seductive, raised on high,
With virtue strengthened, or with knowledge lit
Those kingdoms subjugate? I wrest them back
In the name of honesty and upright dealing,
And give them to mankind. If sword of mine
Had slept in the iron ore for endless ages,
Spurning its call divine, the mocking gods
Bending from heaven had swept with menial besom,
As from fair pavements, dust, those menial kings,
The opprobrium of authentic royalty.
The realms I rule shall love me.
Heph.
Lesser Asia
'Tis true this day is with you.
Alex.
Persia shall be:
But till she does her best, and worst, and fails,
The work I work is temporal. Let her do it!
Then comes my time:—
Strong hand makes empire: hand that heals retains it.
I came not to be Cyrus o'er again;
Another reign begins. Enough: 'tis late:—
How fares that fallen House?
Heph.
As Patience fares
In the extreme of sadness. Sisygambis,
Under the great weight of her ninety years,
Sits heavy, slowly moving tearless eyes
Which seek her son Darius, or, it may be,
Her eighty brothers, slaughtered in one day
Long since by Ochus. She that was the queen
On the queen-mother gazes without speech,
And, pitying that high grief, tempers her own.
The royal children stand, now glad, now pensive,
'Twixt light and shade.
Alex.
I chose for them the best,
Consigning them to you.
Heph.
The palace pile
Of olden Tyre affords them kind repose:
The sea-dirge scarce can pierce its massive walls:
There they have woodland shades for grief to hide in,
And streams to lull the voice of memory.
Those Easterns call such places Paradises,
And much affect them.
Alex.
Seek that aged queen,
Hephestion. When my leisure serves I'll see her.
