The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

Alexander and Craterus.
Alex.
That's shout the third: whatmoves their rage?

Cra.
Philotas
Should answer that: he's masterful in gibes:
The soldiers say that once, to spite a woman,
He kiss'd a viper's mouth: the viper died.
He's venom-tongued, and mischievous more for this—
He holds his sneers for truths.

Alex.
In Egypt first
I learn'd his malice. For his father's sake
I will'd not his disgrace, and so advanced him:
The man's not won.

Cra.
He scorns your Persian pomps;
Scoffs at that legend of your birth divine:
There are who swear that in the Ammonian fane
You learn'd the secret.

Alex.
This was what I learn'd,
That earth is mine to rule. The legend's little;
Baseless 'tis not, nor now unseasonable.
Whence comes the soul? We know not. What if souls
Heroic, from the great heart of some god
Forth-flashing as a beam from sun or star,
Blend, thus detach'd, with soul-expectant frames
Worthiest such mate, and stamp the demi-god,
While meaner souls float blind down streams Lethean?

Cra.
All men are children of the Power Divine.

Alex.
All men, I grant, win a creative touch
From hand divine. The hand is not the heart!
If heroes issue from the heart of gods
As from the head of Zeus Athenè sprang,

I say they are sons of gods. If here on earth
We grant a father's god-like name to those
Who generate these our earthly bulks, why then
Grudge to our spirits' sire a father's title?
This is that truth which, in its mean disguise,
My soldiers recognize.

Cra.
Philotas saith
'Tis base to kneel before the sceptred hand.

Alex.
Because himself is base. This is the baseness—
To quick or dead, the sceptred or unsceptred,
To yield the meed of worship not deserved:
From them that have deserved it to withhold it
Is theft, and may be sacrilege. Who comes?

[Hephestion and Perdiccas enter hurriedly.
Per.
Dimnus, a known conspirator, and proven—

Alex.
I heard it three hours since.

Heph.
Dimnus is dead:
He sware that, living, they should take him never.

Alex.
I like not that.

Per.
Philotas schemed the plot.

Alex.
I saw Philotas; charged him with his crime.
He knelt; he wept; protested innocence;
Had deem'd the rumour but an empty tale:
I sent him forth absolved.

Per.
This letter cancels
That absolution. Sir, 'tis from Parmenio;
He weighs the plot; approves it; urges caution
Which, wed with valour, breeds alone success:
We found it 'mid the traitor's papers. Read!

Alex.
(after reading).
What is it that you demand?

Per.
This man, Philotas,
By you from dust uplifted to the heights,
This man who might have flown, by preference blind
And native instinct, creeping through base life,

Hath, like the worm that slimes his path, made vile
The paths he crawl'd upon. This man of old
Walk'd with Amyntas, him that, Philip dead,
Schemed for your throne. This man, three days or more—
He not denies it—cognizant of the plot,
Held him in silence till the hour itself
Of butchery decreed. You ask, what claim we?
Sir, this your army claims—the right to live:
This plot is neither plot the first, nor second;
And we are here to warn you that your host
Which oft for wanton risking of his life
Hath censured its great chief, this day condemns him
As one who, set apart and seal'd by gods,
Perils his army, and his empire perils,
Yea, with conspirators himself conspires,
Boy-like to boast great heart.

Alex.
Their fears are vain:
On my last field, grey-headed, I shall die,
Circled by subject kings. What seek my soldiers?

Per.
They make two claims; first, that the great Assembly
Should sift and judge the crime; next, that the award,
Once pass'd, should take effect without appeal.

Alex.
(after musing).
We grant them both demands. Call in those Indians.

University of Virginia Library

Scene VII.—Alexander's Tent on the Jaxartes.