University of Virginia Library

ACT V.

Night. A storm. Front of the Temple.
INAROS. LADICE.
INAROS.
Oh! if that form be thou, those accents thine,
Speak of thyself alone.

LADICE.
Haste, haste away,
Since thou again art free. We meet once more;
Then shalt thou place Ladice 'neath a mound
Form'd of the sand which the now raging storm
Hath wafted from the desert: let the peace
Which covers the untrodden wilderness
Where life is not, be her long epitaph!
She did forsee what hand would shed her blood.
She now fortells that thine too must be shed
If thou remain'st an instant. Haste away!
Follow the path which from this avenue
Will lead thy footsteps to the river's bank.
There wilt thou find a tongue to guide thee.

INAROS.
Stay!
Pale, spectral prophetess! explain thy words.

LADICE.
Hast thou not heard? then all is lost! Fly hence,
And question not my weakness, for these lips
Cannot repeat their sentence, or explain
Their swift inexplicable fluency.
I am the vessel of unfathom'd truths
Utter'd, but not recorded! Ah! I feel
Myself urged on to act another part.
Now burns the character in figur'd light
Before my eyes, and impulse leads me on.

SIUPHIS.
Here am I left! O earth support my frame!
What did Nitetis whisper in my ear?
To think of Chilon to my latest hour?
And dared she mock me with the traitor's name?
For this my hand shall grapple with her heart
Until its roots are snapp'd within her! Gods!
Some poison works inside me, as a fire
I inly burn. O death, starv'd skeleton,
Come to thy courtier, let him hug thy neck!
Can no one hear the dying sufferer's voice?
Here, faint he lies, scarce sensible of life
Or light of day, with but the canopy
Spread out across the pallor of his brow.
And when a lucid interval arrives
With sense of pain, too feebly he exclaims
For succour; still he calls and finds no help.

SIUPHIS. PIROMIS.
SIUPHIS.
Water!

PIROMIS.
Where have they led my son?

SIUPHIS.
Be kind,
And spare my breath till thou hast quench'd its fire.

PIROMIS.
Thy worldly appetites alone survive
To death encounter! When the soul itself
Is burn'd and parch'd by passion, it is well
To sip the fountain of oblivion.
But it behoves us in the hour of death
To sink in spiritual tranquillity.
Had he the aspiration to forget
His mortal ills, and think beyond the grave
Of the vast scene to open on his eyes,
My soul in torrents of benevolence
Should gush on his; but I can keep no faith
With the poor driveller, humanity.
I may be plung'd in error, but a cause
For why hath nature planted in my heart;
Nor shall a thought or deed of mine be chang'd.
The moral history of the universe
Was writ ere yet creation came to pass.
Can he condemn who knows why all things are?

He passes on to the temple.
SIUPHIS, HOROS.
SIUPHIS.
Water! oh sage!

HOROS.
Stay, not far hence the rock
Yields sweet abundance; thither will I haste.

SIUPHIS.
I know the face, tho' from my memory
The forms of life are fleeting fast away.

HOROS.
Thus I return. Let this thy thirst assuage.

SIUPHIS.
Oh! is that wish sincere, or is the voice
Feigned to the music of celestial love?

HOROS.
He sips not nature's pure medicament,
But falls asleep, perhaps no more to dream.
I will approach the river. Egypt's law
Apportions sacred honours to the tomb
Of him who breathes his last beneath that flood.
The dire events on which the day hath closed
Have proved my destined function at an end.
Henceforth were life a vision of the past,
A picture of enacted miseries.
The sympathy I cherished till to-day,
Hath from its gentle shape to monstrous chang'd;
It clings to me with hideous grasp, and threats
To end me with its fondness. The great hope
To aid my country hath assumed a form
Of dread reality; and now, too late,
I learn that errors sacred to the world,
When suddenly corrected, must entail
The ruin of all good and useful things.
But now that Discord hath asunder torn
The links of good and evil, if, perchance,
The words Latona's oracle pronounc'd
By strange coincidence should be fulfill'd,
Death crowns with bitter triumphs, which in life
I failed to reap. Arise thou form of night,
Spread thy oblivious wings, and hide from view
The murmuring waters! Ye contending winds
Instruct in unknown tongues death's auditor,
That he may learn his path across the flood.
Arise ye winged lightnings, throw your forms
Along my dark horizon; and thou blaze
Of meteor cease not with thy birth, but drop
Thy light into the deep! From rock to rock
How the dread thunder echoes; while beneath
The earth, with floods contending, sends afar
The hollow moans of desolating might!
Take thy last leave, my fate directed soul,
Of nature, clothed in all her elements!
Ye meet no more, save in the memory
Of the eternal one who gave to be.

SIUPHIS.
The fiend approaches: let me lie conceal'd.

NITETIS, SOLDIER, SIUPHIS.
NITETIS.
Thou fearful night, thou storm-expressive heaven,
And lightning flashing by the vengeful face
Of the Eternal One! if woman's soul
By birth to mildness temper'd, by itself
Swoln to the deadliest hatred of its foes,
Be worthy of associates so dire,
She gives it ye in blackest sympathy.
Ye lightnings fall, and round her bitter smile
Wreathe your bright flames, and hurl the thunderbolt,
The furies sceptre, at her feet! The flame
Shows me a corpse borne on the troubled flood:
A signal that my vengeance shall succeed.
Piromis lives; the pleading gentleness
Of the divine-made Horos hath prevail'd:
But did Nitetis vow to spare his child?
On to the prison, soldier, secretly
Put Inaros to death. The corpse obtain'd,
Bring it before the temple. There arriv'd
Address the priest, say that the shroud enfolds
The corpse of Horos; then reveal his son.
Now to the bloody purpose, lose no time.
This day the priest shall see his line extinct,
And he in lonely pride shall live to mourn,
If there be life in tomb-desiring sorrow!

SIUPHIS, INAROS.
SIUPHIS.
Hast thou escaped? Then shall her wicked plots
End in a harmless hurricane of hate.
The dying man is merciful. I feel
A mild compassion for thy cruel race,
Within this almost vacant seat of life;
But not for her who in this mortal breast
Hath fixed the cursed signal to decay!
Distemper'd woman! If I yet can drag
This form of clay, which grows at every breath
More cumbrous, but as far as yonder fane,
I will disturb the system of thy schemes.
O give me but the creeping energy
Which to the tomb-discussing worm belongs,
And I will mock thy venom! Creep thou arm,
Which yesterday was winged to smite the air,
In whose exalted region moved the spears
Of heroes equal in renown to death;
Creep, and by midnight shall thy journey end.

INAROS.
What do I hear thee utter, wretched man?
Wretched perhaps as I!

SIUPHIS.
Approach my side;
Bend thine ear towards me; thou shalt find in me
A traitor to the interests of the grave.
Believe the utterance of the dying!

INAROS.
Ha!
Can this be true? Is she so pitiless?
Ladice! let me bless thy guardian soul!

SIUPHIS.
Begone, and hide thy body till the morrow,
Into whose distant hour no eye can pierce.
Begone, and shut thy body up: thy life,
On whose defenceless incorporeal mould
Nor plated helm, nor armour can repose,
May else with ineffectual struggle meet
Th' assassin steel.

INAROS.
I will retrace my steps
To those dark labyrinths thro' which I cross'd
My prison to the fane.

SIUPHIS.
Thy life be sav'd!
Enter a SOLDIER.
A thought on my expiring genius dawns,
And it shall prove of deeper bitterness
To queen Nitetis, than if her own soul
Recoil'd in enmity against itself!

SOLDIER.
'Tis said that Inaros, who hath escap'd
His prison, fled into this avenue.

SIUPHIS.
My friend, ere yet too late, from this black flood
Rescue the floating body of the priest.
There Inaros, Piromis' son, hath sought
A dreadful refuge from his enemies.
Soldier approaches the river.
The gods be prais'd that he believes the tale.

PSAMMENITOS.
The vision of an empire moves away
Before my sight, and I support the show
Of what was once a monarch. Is my life
To be henceforth a lonesome spectacle
Of fallen power, the mockery of kings,
The wonder of the curious multitude,
Whose metaphysics easily explores
The pride of levell'd grandeur? Do I stand
Upon the soil which my ungovern'd will
Once ruled, to only watch its government
By other sceptres than my own? Thus left
Save by the faithful few whose looks promote
My hopes, will I once more ascend my throne.
No living creature is within my view,
No courtier watches for the withered smile
Of this changed figure; none beseeches now
For favour, place, or wealth. No warrior
Comes with the news of distant victories,
To seek reward. Not even the poor appear
To show their meek complaint against the strong.
To me my children are not! Desolate
Indeed is he who once has swayed the earth,
Who once has been a parent, thus to be!

He enters the temple.
PSAMMENITOS, PIROMIS.
PSAMMENITOS.
Hast thou obeyed thy monarch's last command,
And rallied round his throne the faithful band
Which still is free?

PIROMIS.
Siuphis poisoned dies.

PSAMMENITOS.
Dies! what funereal honours are at hand
To please his manes! Are thy adherents firm?

PIROMIS.
They are; this night will bring back liberty,
Or close on us for ever!

PSAMMENITOS.
It may bring
That outward liberty with which mankind
Concerns its waste desires! Can it restore
The dignity of an unvanquish'd throne;
The home affections; the undaunted looks
With which I smiled on man? We meet again
At midnight, here or in the realms below.

Psammenitos departs.
PIROMIS.
Who comes? It is th' infuriated king.
I'll meet him; he shall never enter here.

PIROMIS, CAMBYSES, SOLDIERS.
PIROMIS.
Why comest thou hither in this threatening guise?
Though power be in thy grasp, and empire bind
Thy brow with outward monarchy, above
Is Fate, sole ruler, never yet unthron'd.
Thou may'st disperse us from the Lybian hills,
To never more those pyramids adore,
Which will not own thy greatness, or give up
Their giant dead, between whose forms and heaven
The unrecording vacancy hath fled,
Whose deeds the monumental silence tells.
Thou may'st pollute this consecrated land,
Its temples, glowing in the light of prayer;
But all thy malice never can efface
The footsteps of the greater left behind.

CAMBYSES.
Amid the ruins of this hated fane
Shalt thou be crushed! Thy treachery had reach'd
My all-suspecting mind ere thou did'st speak
Thy purposes to the conspiring king.
Him did I honour, and to royalty
Restore; nor shall he therefore more appear
Humbled as thou; but instantly shall die.
Thou by the hungry populace whose voice
Demands thy blood, shalt now be massacred;
Their jaws shall tear thee piecemeal, and devour
Thy flesh, as savage beasts devour their prey.

PIROMIS.
Is such thy will? How ludicrous is power!
Am I in thy weak hands? for not a chord
Of awe within me shakes at thy decree.
All torture which hath not the power to quench
The spirit of a mortal, may be borne:
When insupportable 'tis felt not more.

A Crowd approaches.
VOICES OF THE PEOPLE.
Death to the priest! by his detested arts
Was Horos kept in prison.

PIROMIS.
Do I hear?
The congregated passion, like a sea
By nature left to its unguided course
Is turbulent; the quantity of man
Against the god-like quality engaged.
The crude humanity, whence nature shapes
The rarer masterpiece, rebellious moves
Against the work which heaven was pleased to form
Of its material.

CAMBYSES.
Thou daring man!
Henceforth thy race shall grovel in the dust.

PIROMIS.
Then is the path on which thy anger treads,
Pav'd with the glory of past centuries.
Resign the prospect, lest against thy head
The curse of the Piromides prevail.

CAMBYSES.
What, man?

PIROMIS.
Thou shalt be told. There is a place
More dear to beings human and divine
Than all the wrath of thy majestic soul.
That place is Isis! Should'st thou touch the walls
With hand profane, recall this solemn oath:
Thy dreadful phrenzy never to subside
'Till it hath scatter'd every lucid thought,
Shall, in the semblance of thy reason, gain
Supremacy within thee. It thy guide,
Thou shalt destroy the partner of thy rest,
Drain of vitality thy sister's shape,
All thy attendants slaughter, and afar
Behold thy brother fix'd on Persia's throne.

VOICES OF THE PEOPLE.
On to the temple; he beneath its stones,
This night shall sleep for ever.

PIROMIS.
'Tis the voice
Of the brute number, of the monstrous host.
O, if my time of reckoning be nigh,
May my long life from them be separate
For ever; may two kingdoms us divide.
To dwell with them for ever, dreadful scene,
Would brutalize this immortality.

CAMBYSES.
Strange man! thy portion was to succour them.

PIROMIS.
Thou earth-born! look upon this haughty brow!
I was not made for menial offices,
Nor, tho' besought by helpless misery,
To pander to the wants of the Most-Low.

He mounts the steps of the temple.
CAMBYSES.
Ye soldiers, ministers of my revenge,
Prostrate the temple's columns that the wreck
Of all its super-structure downward roll
To crush him. Scatter with unsparing hand
The altars and the statues of the gods,
Lay bare the inner walls of sepulchres,
And drag to light the dwellers of the tombs.

CAMBYSES, NITETIS.
NITETIS.
I bring thee word Psammenitos is dead.

CAMBYSES.
He had a lofty nature; let him pass
The calm and endless period in a tomb
Worthy to hold his manes. Choose one thyself
In honour to a fallen enemy!

NITETIS.
Here is our hatred centred, all besides
Shall feel the balm of pity. It shall be
The distant tomb whose Cyclopean walls
Embrace a city in their massive pile.
It is the resting place of twelve great kings
Co-reigning! At the distant angles stand
Four pyramids with figures closely carv'd
As is the labyrinth which stands between.
'Tis on the margin of the tranquil lake
From whose unvision'd depths emerge the trunks
Of hand-erected columns, that support
On high colossal monarchs on their thrones.
Thus I forgive a royal enemy
That is no more. On to the hated fane,
Where thou shalt see the priest shed woman's tears.

CAMBYSES.
This hour he dies.

NITETIS.
Yet not till he hath seen
His only son a corpse beneath his feet.
Lo! in funereal pomp my hate is wrapt,
And, in procession, to the temple comes.
The laughing torch shows gloominess its path.
This way, the body carry to the fane.
Yes! my revenge shall pierce the bosom'd hope,
Shall bow the priestly head to earth in tears.
Here lies his son, the casket of his pride.
Had not this youth been born to die by me
That I might blight his father, with this hand
I would have slaughter'd Horos to fulfil
The oracle's prediction! Let me gain
Piromis' ear and speak Latona's words.
Priest listen to the oracle's decree:—
“The hour that Horos prematurely dies,
Thy temple, Isis, in wide ruin lies!”
Now ponder well that victim, by the mouth
Of the Piromides condemn'd to die.
Bring the torch near, bend downward and regard
A face thou never lov'dst; unbind the eyes,—
O! unrelenting deities, 'tis He!

She sinks to the earth.
PIROMIS.
Bring ye the corpse of Horos to his tomb,
Demanding sacred honours; hath the Nile
Engulph'd him? Then with his was link'd my doom!
Let me retire within the sacred walls,
There will I rest in death; and, if it may,
My spirit long shall haunt this solemn site,
Tho' not a wreck remain. A word with thee,
O thou Eternal! Now, Piromis claims
That practice of high reason which in life
Was only manifest in infant dreams.
O generous giver of immortal souls!
Soon shall I bear, in person, to thy throne
The solemn thanks which now my heart repeats
For this high being, and the benefits
Which a great life of intellect on earth
Entail'd: of that bright period my praise
For the last time I offer, as I stand
Upon the confines of a hoped-for land.

VOICES OF THE PEOPLE.
He falls destroy'd beneath a column's weight.

NITETIS,
starting up.
Ah! he is crush'd! and that, before his son
Hath fix'd death's eyes upon him! Cruel fate,
Lost in the very moment of revenge!
Where is the hated corpse of Inaros?

NITETIS, CAMBYSES, SIUPHIS.
SIUPHIS.
Thou venom'd work of nature's spiteful mood,
Thou foul example to the fiends, suppos'd
To occupy the dim abodes of night
With souls gone from us, unillum'd by hope!
My hand has pour'd thy vengeance back again,
To poison thee, as thou hast poison'd me!
I am too weak to draw thy wicked blood,
And make for thee a death-bed in the mire,
But when thou diest, within the narrow pass
Of some infernal passage I will fix
My ghost, that it may strangle thee, and strike
Its fangs, earn'd by iniquity, across
Whate'er of thee escapes the gripe of death.
Now the prophetic world above me dawns.
Upon the map of time I trace the lines
Of thy still deeper shame; of thy last hope
Denied; thy station set in solitude!
Thou still hast hope!

NITETIS.
Is there no weapon near?

SIUPHIS.
It comes too late; thy victory is gain'd.
And to the shades by vengeance wing'd I pass.

He dies.
Enter LADICE, pointing to CAMBYSES.
LADICE.
Thou still hast hope; it lies in thy revenge!
Now look on thy avenger!

NITETIS.
Spectral form!
Why doth Cambyses trembling watch the blaze
Of yonder temple! pallid is his brow;
His features, unserene, their places change
And picture horror. Who approaches now?
'Tis he! how basely then am I betray'd!

LADICE
points to INAROS, who enters.
Thou still hast hope! where hath thy vengeance fled?

NITETIS.
How living hath he 'scap'd his prison-house?

LADICE.
Fate was the liberator! Fate decreed
To save the proud religion of thy land.

She dies.
NITETIS.
Thou art Piromis now! thy father's soul
Dilates thee, thou inheritest his look—
That quiet, silent, and avenging smile!
Still does Piromis live, he triumphs here!
Crush'd is his mortal part; but here his will
And his heart-chilling intellect he sends
To crush me, to deride my lost design,
And mock me in my fullest misery.
Canst thou endure to think of this, O king?
O plunge thy weapon in his growing form,
Which rises o'er me like the father's shade!
Wake from thy reverie, and, ere too late,
Be my avenger!

CAMBYSES.
Hence! thou hateful fiend!
What noise is that I hear? Is it the stones
Of Isis' solemn temple rushing down,
A cataract of premature decay?
The fire of heaven descends the fractur'd dome,
And thro' the ruin'd line of columns glares,
And now is dark like me. The crash again!
The flames now fling their murderous spires along
The solemn aspect of the crumbling walls.
I see distinctly walking 'midst their rage,
In calm repose of interchanging thought,
The metamorphos'd figures of the priest
And his pale king; they pause, and point at me.
The earth moves round me; all my senses cling
In vain unto their axis; and my thoughts,
Whirl'd with a force centrifugal, escape
Their link'd connection. This the priest foretold!
The darkness of my spirit dims the space
Which reason travers'd; and, behind my sight,
The orb of intellect inglorious sets.
The dreadful workings of his prophecy!