University of Virginia Library

Scene I.

—An apartment in the Prisons.
Nicephorus
(alone).
Morn, let me meet thee face to face once more;
Thou look'st upon me with an unmoved front,
The pale cold aspect of a wearied friend.
Well, well; my race was run; 'tis but in age
That Fortune plays me false; 'tis but in age
When all that I can lose she doth but snatch
Out of the hand of Death. 'Twas in my youth,
When she was kind, her constancy bore price;
For then there was a life to make or mar.
There's many an infant Hercules is dwarfed
By lacking a first meal, and me she fed
From a full breast and held me by the hand
Till I could run alone. She quits me now,
But not till time is that I quit the world.
Kings ought not to be old. The strength of thrones
Is youth. The infirmities of age in Kings
Cripple the body politic: first fails
Life's vigour at the heart; a numbness next
Seizes the weak extremities of empire;
Then some old sore breaks out, and all at once
The nice adjustments of the strong-knit frame
Are rent like rotted ligaments asunder.
There's some one comes;—but here's such scanty light—
Who stands within the Emperor's prison doors?

Comnenus
(who has entered)
Isaac Comnenus.

Nicephorus.
Thou art welcome, Count;
More welcome to my prison than my palace.

Comnenus.
I know it. Never was I welcome there.
Had I been less obnoxious in thy sight
I had not sought thy fall. Nor seek I now
Thy further fall than what defence demands.
I would give room for thy fast shortening days
To gather in the aftermath of life
And garner for a better world what here
May yet be reaped.

Nicephorus.
My life! What life is that?
A mangled life that crawls along the base
Of the huge precipice o'er which it fell;
A life that were it whole were little worth
At threescore years and twelve, and being pierced
With many a mortal wound, may count its price
As less than little. Yet I take thy gift.

Comnenus.
Gladly I find there's aught I have to give
Worth thine acceptance. One condition yet
Demands fulfilment that the crown be safe;
For to that end provision must be made
That derogates in some sort from my grant.

Nicephorus.
Thou aim'st then at my liberty. So be it.
The loss of liberty! What loss is that?
Who hath it? Not the rich man. Not the poor.
The rich of what he owns is owned the slave;
The poor a bondsman to necessities,
Selling himself in parcels. And a prison!
To that old age arrives by Nature's doom,
Barring the wrongs of fortune; an old man
More meekly may endure it.

Comnenus.
Somewhat else
Remains for stipulation. While thou hold'st
Thy station in men's minds as being still
One of an order capable of empire,
Thy friends will breed expectancy of change.

Nicephorus.
“Friends” was thy word? in truth an empty fear!
My friends! In thousands yesterday at dawn
Like leaves in summer did they hang on me;
But ere night fell, as with a winter's blight,
They were abroad upon the several winds.
Now, by God's name, it grieves me to the heart
They were not sepultured in yonder trench.

Comnenus.
Be it thy friends are friends of him who reigns,
Thy malcontents will soon be such to us,
And every disaffection that may grow
Take the good name of loyalty to thee.

Nicephorus.
What surety wouldst thou have?

Comnenus.
Assume the tonsure.
The service of the Church, whilst it forbids
The thoughts men might attach to thee of empire,
Becomes thy latter days.

Nicephorus.
Ay doth it, Count?
Hast thou forgotten, in thy feast of power,
The tenor of the life thou'dst have me close
In mockery of myself? The tonsure, Count!
Dim though they be, these latter hours of life,
I quickly call to mind the glorious dawn
When first amidst Mount Rhodope's defiles
A Thracian soldier I took spear in hand;
And though that spear be splintered and that hand
Be nerveless now, I yet have that within
That stoops not to conditions such as thine.
A prisoner thou may'st make me,—not a puppet.

Comnenus.
I meaned no contumely. A fitter time—

Nicephorus.
No more—I see thee not again—hence-forth
All that the Emperor of his gaoler seeks
Is that his latter hours be undisturbed.

Comnenus.
Farewell: but should thy meditations bring
Another mood of mind, spare not to speak it.
Thy summons on the instant brings me back.

[Exit.
Nicephorus.
My life hath been such life as Kings must bear
Who would be more than pageants: it has been
A life of anxious, strenuous thought, and deeds
That sprang from such: yea and all men must say,
Howe'er I governed, it was I that governed:
No minister has played the monarch here.
I have swayed nations—less by kingly power
Than by a power within me which had swayed
The minds around me had I not been King.
My single destiny is all that now
Remains for me to govern; nor shall I
Be found unequal to this final charge.
How many times in youth a violent death
Seemed imminent, yet brought me no alarm
And now the loss of so much less of life,
And that less portion of less rateable worth,
Would surely not seem fearful, but that age
Counts with its ills tenacity of life,
The old inveterate habit of existence.
Enter Theodora.
My daughter, com'st thou to console thy sire?
Thy filial duty hath not been o'erpaid,
But such a time as this were ill employed
In aught but kindly speech.

Theodora.
Father, I come
In this most bitter hour to aid your counsels.
I have not used (and therefore has our love
Held heretofore a not unbroken course)
All words of tender import which are rife
In women's mouths; and if I had such now
What could they profit you?

Nicephorus.
What hast thou better?

Theodora.
Daggers.

Nicephorus.
Hush! hush! that is no woman's word.

Theodora.
Yea, 'tis a woman's word and woman's weapon.
But there are hands to hold them more than mine,
Though there be none more steady. Time runs out.
The menials of the palace as I came
Were busied with the pageant of to-morrow.
Grant that a woman's doom had laid in the dust
The head which they would crown.

Nicephorus.
Why were it done,
Deem'st thou the difference of a single head
Shall quell a reigning faction? Had the blow
Been struck while yet the victory was in doubt
Their leader lost had been the loss of all;
But now 'twere a miracle if they kept not
What he hath won.

Theodora.
Father, your years benumb you.
Wherefore is this? the Patriarch wears a coil
Of twenty winters more, yet his blood's hot;
And I, a woman, do not yet despond.

Nicephorus.
The Patriarch's fury blinds thee to his dotage.
I tell thee there's no hope. As easily
Recall the colour to a corpse's cheek
As give them heart again.

Theodora.
You will not hear;
The cohort which deserted yesternight,
Though paid their hire, were coldly entertained;
Wherewith but ill-content, this day they've sworn
To rise in arms upon the Patriarch's call.
All now is loose, the townsmen and the troops;
None careful but the conquered. One blow struck
Confounds them in their mirth.

Nicephorus.
This old man's dream
Which he hath told thee doth portend nought else
But that a night of blood will interlope
Ere the Comnenian dynasty begin.

Theodora.
My father, hear.

Nicephorus.
Nay, nay; I know too well
That sleepless Chief whose eye is over all,
Be feasting they that will.

Theodora.
Then at your choice
Cleave still to your despair. I go,—and soon
Here in your cell or on your throne resumed
A tale will reach you of as bold a deed
As e'er was done by our most martial sires
Upon the Thracian hills. Till then, farewell!
Father—your blessing.

Nicephorus.
Oh! my child, much grief,
Sore trouble hast thou brought me in my time;
But I forgive thee now, nor may I blame
This enterprise, all hopeless though it be.
Take thou thy father's blessing and depart.
I in the inner chamber will go seek
That rest the time invites me to. Farewell.