University of Virginia Library

Scene V.

—Another part of the same Garden.—Anna Comnena, alone.
Anna.
Whate'er the cause I'm glad we meet again;
For our last parting was not to my mind—
A turning off as who should meet by chance
And bid good-morrow—nay, not even that;
He did not say farewell, a word though sad
One would not leave unspoken—still a sweet sound,
Though, it may be, a sound that parts for ever,
The dying cadence of a broken chord.
He did not say farewell, nor did he look it,
Nor kiss it, as he once, though not of late,
Was wont to do. I have outgrown the time
When all was unsuspected, unsuspicious:
And yet I would not be a child again.
How quiet is the night—no breath afloat—
I hear the kine upon the far hill-side
Tear up the long dank grass. And such a morn
Will break the rest of this so peaceful night!
Hark! what is that?

Comnenus
(entering).
Curse on these birchen boughs;
They waked a grey he-owl, who stared amain
To see one here that was not of his order.
Well met, fair cousin! Short our time is here.
Wert thou afraid to come?

Anna.
Afraid? oh no;
I nowhere feel so safe as where you are.

Comnenus.
Yet few men of a peaceful mind like mine
Have brought such dangers both on friends and foes;
Not wilfully—in no case wilfully;
And now the end is near.

Anna.
A happy end,
Oh yes, a happy, blessed end I trust;
And thenceforth and for ever we live in peace.

Comnenus.
Under his fig-tree each: so be it! Yet
At this and all times it befits the brave
To look each issue fairly in the face.
The courage of the commonalty sinks
Unless their hearts be sanguine; victory thus
Is in each general's mouth; none cries,
Courage, my friends, for wretched is your plight!
The chances are against us, Death and Defeat!
But by the common cry the common mind
Is buoyed aloft: be it not so with us:
Whatsoe'er possible evils lie before
Let us sincerely own them to ourselves,
With all unstinting, unevasive hearts,
Reposing in the consciousness of strength
Or fervent hope to be endowed with strength
Of all-enduring temper,—daring all truth.

Anna.
I am courageous when you bid me be;
But were I left without a friendly voice
To strengthen and exhort me,—left alone
In some disastrous sequel of this strife,
I fear, I fear that I should falter.

Comnenus.
Nay,
The fear of fear redoubles fear of fact,
And ofttimes fact is better borne than fear.
The worst assemblage of the worst events
When actual is not so intolerable
As when remote it seems: fancy o'ersteps
The bounds of nature, and miscounts the force
Of cumulative griefs: a first mishap
Has a fair field; the rest are but late comers;
The human mind's capacity of pain
Is no illimitable attribute.
What is it you most dread?

Anna.
Oh! when I think
How many a bold adventurer rose in arms
This last indiction, and what fates they met,
They who had won and reigned falling in turn,
And then behold you standing where they stood,
Upon the verge of empire or of—

Comnenus.
Death,
Not excæcation, if the thought of that
Calls up these looks of horror. Fear it not.
To no such maimed and ignominious close
Will I degrade my being. Life is now,
I think, with all its evils, eligible;
But one sense less would turn the odds against it.

Anna.
But if this dread conjuncture should arrive,
You would not with your own hand cast it off?

Comnenus.
Not so, if others can be found: my wish
Has never been unneedfully to arm
My reason or my will against my instincts;
What facile guidance nature gives I take;
In the sharp interchange of blow for blow
Our volatile life transpires at unawares
Without the thought of death, whose sting is thought;
The easiest permeation of mortality
Is this, and this, if need be, shall be mine.

Anna.
Whilst I behold you standing by my side
So full of life, my mind will scarce be brought
Fairly to apprehend the fatal change
We speak of.

Comnenus.
Death is but a name to you,
Who have but fancied hitherto, not felt
A deprivation. May it so remain!
To me, acquainted with mortality,
A foresight and forefeeling clear and strong
Present the image of the hour to come;
And come when come it may, death comes to me
As a familiar spirit—not desired,
Neither eschewed. Some three good hours ago
I passed a burial-ground, and pondering there
How much by accident it is we live
'Mid all the storms that wreck humanity,
I deemed that there was something yet to do
To clear the coming hours of anxious thoughts;
One possible issue unprovided for.

Anna.
I can but look to two events; but two:
Your victory, which quits us of all cares;
Or else your fall; and having proved the worst
There's nothing left to fear; Fear yields to Fate.

Comnenus.
Though I should fall, defeat might not ensue;
Alexius might win the crown and wear it.
My thoughts were on that upcast; and therewith
I called to mind how greatness shuffles off
The ties of blood, and oft-divided hearts
Break up the fortunes of a new-made house.

Anna.
'Twill not be so with ours.

Comnenus.
That it might not,
Is mainly what has brought me here to-night.
Nought could secure Alexius on his throne
More than Eudocia's counsel; which were lost
Should he receive a stranger's hand in marriage.
I know my sister's heart, and bear in mind
What comes of Aulic councils wherein strives
With an Augusta's will a Cæsarissa's.

Anna.
She must be brave who thwarts Eudocia.

Comnenus.
Nay;
The empress were high-minded who should not.
Audacious oftener than unenvious
Are women: of them all I know but one
From female jealousies by nature free
In whom Alexius, should he wear the crown,
Would find a fitting consort. You are she.

Anna.
I! never; never; oh no, never in me
A consort could he find; me most unfit
For aught but meekly to await the end
And mindful of my kindred with your house
Weep or rejoice as ill or good betides;
In me a consort can he never find.

Comnenus.
And wherefore? 'Twas in childhood you last met;
When you survey him with a woman's eyes
You shall confess no woman can resist him.
Oh, childhood's independency of heart
How art thou lost before the loser wotteth!
Why should we doubt the prompt and sure success
Of a good soldier like Alexius?

Anna.
I love Alexius as his cousin ought,
But will not wed him: and I say not this,
As many a maiden's protest has been said,
For a defiance; nor does pride prompt me,
Who ne'er was independent of affections,
To say, what said shall bind me evermore,
That come what may, to him imperial honours,
To me distress, bereavement, all that's worst,
I will not wed Alexius.

Comnenus.
How is this?
You say you love him as his cousin ought
And then forswear him and renounce his works
With like devotion as he were the Devil.
How know you till you see him grown to man
You may not worship him? Armenian girls
Call him the Mithra of the middle world
That sheds Eoan radiance on the West.

Anna.
I meaned not to disparage him; oh no,
He was a gentle boy, of a kind heart
And a quick fancy, and I loved him well.
But do not speak of him as now you did;
That makes me rancorous in my own despite.

Comnenus.
I say no more. When time is most to spare
There is a sex in reasoning with whom
I never misemploy it. True it is
That divers motives, many a cogent cause,
Affecting first the empire, next yourself,
And lastly the Comnenian race, demand
Another strain of thought. I press them not.
When these want weight, change may be better hoped
From passion's mutability.

Anna.
Oh, God!
The last words these may be we speak together,
And can you thus embitter them, and all
Only because I'm true to my own heart?

Comnenus.
Far be reproachful thoughts! my fairest cousin
Shall be as faultless in my sight as fair,
Nor would it derogate from her fair perfection
If she should hold her best affections free
To change as times change; with no wanton lightness,
Nor on vain pretexts, nor from those that are
To those that are not worthy; but with judgment,
Having regard to who are dead, who live.
This only I would ask, but will not urge.
When the hour comes I spoke of (if it come)
Alexius will better press the pleas
That I shall pass away from. Bear in mind
In after times what I have here let fall:
The seasonable hour will come, though now
My counsel seem unacceptable.

Anna.
Alas!
You speak as if you had no hope to live.

Comnenus.
My way was through a churchyard, whence, as I said,
My thoughts have brought away a taint of death.
It is my wont upon a battle's eve
To invocate a spirit for my guide
Which till to-night ne'er answered to my call.
What! is the moon so high? 'tis more than time
That I were in my camp. Farewell, my cousin.
Sinless and blameless as thy life hath been
It is not much of ill that can befall thee.
Mine has been less so.

Anna.
First and best of friends,
If virtuous, just, and honourable living
And gallant deeds could answer for man's weal,
Yours were not to be feared.

Comnenus.
Not much the doubt
Comnenus would stand well with times to come
Were thine the hand to write his threnody.
Yet is he in sad truth a faulty man.
In slavish, tyrannous, and turbulent times
He drew his lot of life, and of the times
Some deep and bloody stains have fallen upon him.
But be it said he had this honesty,
That undesirous of a false renown
He ever wished to pass for what he was:
One that swerved much and oft, but being still
Deliberately bent upon the right,
Had kept it in the main; one that much loved
Whate'er in man is worthy high respect
And did devoutly in his soul aspire
To be it all; yet felt from time to time
The littleness that clings to what is human
And suffered from the shame of having felt it.
But this is posthumous stuff; talk for the tongues
That tell their tales when mine are all told out.
My gentle cousin, hie thee to cover now.
An hour or two and yonder Euxine Sea,
That slowly indues its matutinal grey,
Shall suddenly change colour like a snake,
Enamelled with the glow of other fires
Than those of sunrise. Briefly, fare thee well!
And whatsoe'er be told of me henceforth
A most untruthful annalist were he
Who said I did not love my cousin Anna.

Anna.
Go, dearest kinsman: should we meet no more
In many an hour of all my after life
Shall this be treasured inmost in my heart
As kindness for a last memorial left.
Go, and good Angels guard you is my prayer.

Comnenus.
Good soldiers, Anna. In the arm of flesh
Are we to trust. The Mother of the Gods,
Prolific Mother, holiest Mother Church
Hath banded Heaven upon the side opposed.
No matter: when such supplicants as thou
Pray for us, other Angels need we none.
Now must my horse know nothing of the reins
Until the warder's challenge sound a halt.