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as one day,

In the state's service, I have still my dowry, Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done!
Which shall be consecrated to his rites,
And those of [She stops with agitation.I
Chief of the Ten. Best retain it for your
children.

Marina. Ay, they are fatherless, I thank you.

Chief of the Ten. We

Cannot comply with your request. His relics Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and follow'd

Unto their home by the new Doge, not clad As Doge, but simply as a senator.

Marina. I have heard of murderers, who have interr'd

Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour,

Of so much splendour in hypocrisy
O'er those they slew. I've heard of widows'

tears

Alas! I have shed some- always thanks to you!

I've heard of heirs in sables-you have

left none

To the deceased, so you would act the part

trust, Heaven's will be done too! Chief of the Ten. Know you, lady, To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech? Marina. I know the former better than yourselves;

The latter-like yourselves; and can face both.

Wish you more funerals?

Barb. Heed not her rash words; Her circumstances must excuse her bearing. Chief of the Ten. We will not note them down.

Barb. (turning to Loredano, who is writing upon his tablets) What art thou writing,

With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets?

Lored. (pointing to the Doge's body) That he has paid me! Chief of the Ten. owe you?

What debt did he

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SARDANAPALUS,

A TRAGEDY.

TO

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GÖTHE.

A stranger presumes to offer the homage of a literary vassal to his liege-lord, the first of existing writers, who has created the literature of his own country and illustrated that of Europe. The unworthy production which the author ventures to inscribe to him is entitled SARDANAPALUS.

PREFACE.

For the historical foundation of the compositions in question, the reader is referred to the Notes.

The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach the unities; conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But "Nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however With regard to my own private feelings, feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules as it seems that they are to stand for no-whatsoever. Where he has failed, the faithing, I shall say nothing. lure is in the architect,—and not in the art.

In publishing the Tragedies of Sardanapalus, and of The Two Foscari, I have only to repeat that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage.

On the attempt made by the Managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed.

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born,

To have reach'd an empire; to an empire | We'll meet again in that the sweetest hour, When we shall gather like the stars above us, And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs ;

He will bequeath none; nothing but a name, Which his sons will not prize in heritage: Yet, not all lost, even yet he may redeem His sloth and shame, by only being that Which he should be, as easily as the thing He should not be and is. Were it less toil To sway his nations than consume his life? To head an army than to rule a harem? He sweats in palling pleasures,dulls his soul, And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield not

Health like the chase, nor glory like the

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Lo, where they come! already I perceive The reeking odours of the perfumed trains, And see the bright gems of the glittering girls,

Who are his comrades and his council, flash Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels, As femininely garb'd, and scarce less female, The grandson of Semiramis, the man-queen. He comes! Shall I await him? yes, and front him,

And tell him what all good men tell each other,

Speaking of him and his. They come, the slaves,

Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.

Till then, let each be mistress of her time, And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha, choose, Wilt thou along with them or me? Myrrha. My lord

Sard. My lord! my life, why answerest thon so coldly?

It is the curse of kings to be so answered.
Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine-
say, wouldst thou
Accompany our guests, or charm away

The moments from me?

Myrrha. The king's choice is mine. Sard. I pray thee say not so: my chiefest joy

Is to contribute to thine every wish.
I do not dare to breathe my own desire.
Lest it should clash with thine; for thou
art still

Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for others.

Myrrha. I would remain: I have no happiness

Save in beholding thine; yet -

Sard. Yet, what YET?

Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier Which ever rises betwixt thee and me. Myrrha. I think the present is the

wonted hour

Of council; it were better I retire.
Sal. (comes forward and says) The Ionian
slave says well, let her retire.
Sard. Who answers! How now, brother?
Sal. The queen's brother,
And your most faithful vassal, royal lord.
Sard. (addressing his train) As I have

said, let all dispose their hours Till midnight, when again we pray your presence. [The court retiring. (To Myrrha, who is going) Myrrha! I thought thou wouldst remain. Myrrha. Great king,

Thou didst not say so.

Sard. But thou lookedst it;

SCENE II.-Enter SARDANAPALUS effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flow-know each glance of those Ionic eyes,

ers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of Women and young Slaves.

Sardanapalus (speaking to some of his
Attendants).

Let the pavilion over the Euphrates
Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth
For an especial banquet; at the hour
Of midnight we will sup there: see nought
wanting

And bid the galley be prepared. There is A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear river:

We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign

Which said thou wouldst not leave me. Myrrha, Sire! your brother—

Sal. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia! How darest thou name me and not blush? Sard. Not blush!

Thou hast no more eyes than heart to make her crimson Like to the dying day on Caucasus, Where sunset tints the snow with rosy shadows,

And then reproach her with thine own cold blindness,

Which will not see it. What, in tears, my Myrrha?

Sal. Let them flow on; she weeps for more than one,

To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus, And is herself the cause of bitterer tear

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Thinkst thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury-
The negligence—the apathy-the evils
Of sensual sloth-produce ten thousand
tyrants,

Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
The false and fond examples of thy lusts
Corrupt no less than they oppress, and sap
In the same moment all thy pageant power
And those who should sustain it; so that
whether

A foreign foe invade, or civil broil
Distract within, both will alike prove fatal:
The first thy subjects have no heart to

conquer;

The last they rather would assist than vanquish.

Sard. Why what makes thee the mouthpiece of the people?

Sal. Forgiveness of the queen my sister's

wrongs;

A natural love unto my infant nephews;
Faith to the king, a faith he may need shortly,
In more than words; respect forNimrod's line;
Also, another thing thou knowest not.
Sard. What's that?

Sal. To thee an unknown word.
Sard. Yet speak it,

I love to learn.

Sal. Virtue.

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Beyond his palace-walls, or if he stirs Beyond them, 'tis but to some mountainpalace.

Till summer-heats wear down. O glorious Baal!

Who built up this vast empire, and wert made

A god, or at the least shinest like a god Through the long centuries of thy renown, This, thy presumed descendant, ne'er beheld As king the kingdoms thou didst leave as hero,

Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, and peril!

For what? to furnish imposts for a revel, Or multiplied extortions for a minion.

Sard. I understand thee-thou wouldst

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Sal. Why, like a man—a hero; baffled, but | And skirts of these our realms lie not, Not vanquish'd. With but twenty guards,

she made

Good her retreat to Bactria.

Sard. And how many

Left she behind in India to the vultures?
Sal. Our annals say not.

Sard. Then I will say for them—
That she had better woven within her palace
Some twenty garments, than with twenty
guards

Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens, And wolves, and men-the fiercer of the three,

Her myriads of fond subjects. Is this glory? Then let me live in ignominy ever.

Sal. All warlike spirits have not the
same fate.

Semiramis, the glorious parent of
A hundred kings, although she fail'd in
India,

Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm

Which she once sway'd—and thou mightst| sway.

Sard. I sway them-
She but subdued them.
Sal. It may be ere long

That they will need her sword more than your sceptre.

Sard. There was a certain Bacchus, was there not?

I've heard my Greek girls speak of suchthey say

He was a god, that is, a Grecian god,
An idol foreign to Assyria's worship,
Who conquer'd this same golden realm of
Ind

Thou prat'st of, where Semiramis was vanquish'd.

Sal. I have heard of such a man; and thou perceiv'st

That he is deem'd a god for what he did. Sard. And in his godship I will honour him

Not much as man. What, ho! my cupbearer!
Sal. What means the king?
Sard. To worship your new god
And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I

Enter Cupbearer.

say.

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this Bacchus

Conquer'd the whole of India, did he not?
Sal. He did,and thence was deem'd a deity.
Sard. Not so: of all his conquests a

few columns,

Which may be his, and might be mine, if I Thought them worth purchase and con

veyance, are

The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed, The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke.

But here, here in this goblet is his title
To immortality--the immortal grape
From which he first express'd the soul, and
gave

To gladden that of man, as some atonement
For the victorious mischiefs he had done.
Had it not been for this, he would have been
A mortal still in name as in his grave;
And, like my ancestor Semiramis,
A sort of semi-glorious human monster.
Here's that which deified him — let it now
Humanize thee; my surly, chiding brother,
Pledge me to the Greek god!

I

Sal. For all thy realms

would not so blaspheme our country's

creed.

Sard. That is to say, thou thinkest him

a hero,

That he shed blood by oceans; and no god, Because he turn'd a fruit to an enchantment, Which cheers the sad,revives the old,inspires The young, makes Weariness forget his toil, And Fear her danger; opens a new world When this, the present, palls. Well, then, I pledge thee

And him as a true man, who did his utmost In good or evil to surprise mankind.

[Drinks.

Sal. Wilt thou resume a revel at this hour? Sard. And if I did, 'twere better than

a trophy,

Being bought without a tear. But that is not My present purpose: since thou wilt not pledge me,

Continue what thou pleasest.
(To the Cupbearer) Boy, retire.

[Exit Cupbearer. Sal. I would but have recall'd thee from thy dream:

Better by me awaken'd than rebellion. Sard. Who should rebel? or why? what cause? pretext?

I am the lawful king, descended from
A race of kings who knew no predecessors.
What have I done to thee, or to the people,
That thou shouldst rail, or they rise up
against me?

Sal. Of what thou hast done to me, speak not.

Sard. But

Thou thinkst that I have wrong`d the queen: is't not so?

Sal. Think! Thou hast wrong'd her!

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