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PREFACE.

IN publishing the following Tragedies 3 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. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing.

For the historical foundation of the following compositions 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.

[On the original MS. Lord Byron has written:-" Mem. Ravenna, May 27. 1821. I began this drama on the 13th of January, 1821; and continued the two first acts very slowly, and by intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month); that is to say, in a fortnight." The following are extracts from Lord Byron's diary and letters :

January 13. 1821. Sketched the outline and Dram. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus, (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years old.) and read over a passage in the ninth volume of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians. Carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for a tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into Sardanapalus' than I intended." " May 25. I have completed four acts. I have made Sardanapalus brave, (though voluptuous, as history represents him,) and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but NOT for the stage."

"

May 30. By this post I send you the tragedy. You will remark that the unities are all strictly preserved. The scene passes in the same hall always the time, a summer's night, about nine hours or less; though it begins before sunset, and ends after sunrise. It is not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it; and I shall take better care this time that they don't get hold on 't."

July 14. I trust that Sardanapalus' will not be mistaken for a political play; which was so far from my intention, that I thought of nothing but Asiatic history. My object

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 civilised 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 feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect, and not | in the art. 4

has been to dramatise, like the Greeks (a modest phrase), striking passages of history and mythology. You will fnd all this very unlike Shakspeare; and so much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers. It has been object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have brea down the poetry as nearly as I could to common language. The hardship is that, in these times, one can neither sprak of kings nor queens without suspicion of politics or personalities. I intended neither."

"July 22. Print away, and publish. I think they must own that I have more styles than one. Sardanapalus' is. however, almost a comic character: but, for that matter, so is Richard the Third. Mind the unities, which are my great object of research. I am glad Gifford likes it as for the million, you see I have carefully consulted any thing but the taste of the day for extravagant coups de théâtre."

Sardanapalus was published in December, 1821, and was received with very great approbation.]

2 ["Well knowing myself and my labours, in my old age. I could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the expressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less original in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his subjects." GOETHE.]

3

3[" Sardanapalus" originally appeared in the same volume with" The Two Foscari."]

4

["In this preface," (says Mr. Jeffrey) "Lord Byron renews his protest against looking upon any of his plays na having been composed with the most remote view to the stage; and, at the same time, testifies in behalf of the unities. as essential to the existence of the drama-according to what was till lately, the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it." not think these opinions very consistent; and we think that

DRAMATIS PERSONE.'

Sardanapalus.•

MEN.

SARDANAPALUS, King of Nineveh and Assyria, &c.
ARRACES, the Mede who aspired to the Throne.
BELESES, a Chaldean and Soothsayer.
SALEMENES, the King's Brother-in-law.
ALTADA, an Assyrian Officer of the Palace.

PANIA.

neither of them could possibly find favour with a person whose genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as soon expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to be spoken. A drama is not merely a dialogue, but an action; and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the eyes of assembled spectators. Whatever is peculiar to its written part, should derive its peculiarity from this consideration. Its style should be an accompaniment to action, and should be calculated to excite the emotions, and keep alive the attention, of gazing multitudes. If an author does not bear this continually in his mind, and does not write in the ideal presence of an eager and diversified assemblage, he may be a poet perhaps, but assuredly he will never be a dramatist. If Lord Byron really does not wish to impregnate his elaborate scenes with the living part of the drama - if he has no hankering after stage-effect-if he is not haunted with the visible presentiment of the persons he has created — if, in setting down a vehement invective, he does not fancy the tone in which Mr. Kean would deliver it, and anticipate the long applauses of the pit, then he may be sure that neither his feelings nor his genius are in unison with the stage at all. Why, then, should he affect the form, without the power of tragedy? Didactic reasoning and eloquent description will not compensate, in a play, for a dearth of dramatic spirit and invention: and, besides, sterling sense and poetry, as such, ought to stand by themselves, without the unmeaning mockery of a dramatis persona. As to Lord Byron pretending to set up the unities at this time of day, as the law of literature throughout the world,' it is mere caprice and contradiction. He, if ever man was, is a law to himself— a chartered libertine;' — and now, when he is tired of this unbridled license, he wants to do penance within the unities! English dramatic poetry soars above the unities, just as the imagination does. The only pretence for insisting on them is, that we suppose the stage itself to be, actually and really, the very spot on which a given action is performed, and, if so, this space cannot be removed to another. But the supposition is manifestly quite contrary to truth and experience."— Edin. Rev. vol. xxxvi. The reader may be pleased to compare the above with the following passage from Dr. Johnson : —

"Whether Shakspeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and critics; and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fabie but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented that they were not known by him, or not observed: nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive become the comprehensive genius of Shakspeare, and such censures are suitable to the minute and alender criticism of Voltaire:

-Non usque adeo permiscuit imis
Longus summa dies, ut non, si voce Metelli
Serventur leges, malint a Cæsare tolli.'

ACT I.

SCENE I.

A Hall in the Palace.

Salemenes (solus). He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord;

He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my brother;
He hath wrong'd his veople, still he is their sovereign,
And I must be his friend as well as subject:
He must not perish thus. I will not see
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years
Of empire ending like a shepherd's tale;
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart
There is a careless courage which corruption
Has not all quench'd, and latent energies,
Repress'd by circumstance, but not destroy'd-

Yet, when I speak thus slightly of dramatic rules, I cannot but recollect how much wit and learning may be produced against me; before such authorities I am afraid to stand, not that I think the present question one of those that are to be decided by mere authority, but because it is to be suspected, that these precepts have not been so easily received, but for far better reasons than I have yet been able to find. The result of any inquiries, in which it would be ludicrous to boast of impartiality, is, that the unities of time and place are not essential to a just drama; that though they may sometimes conduce to pleasure, they are always to be sacrificed to the nobler beauties of variety and instruction; and that a play written with nice observation of critical rules, is to be contemplated as an elaborate curiosity, as the product of superfluous and ostentatious art, by which is shown rather what is possible than what is necessary. He that without diminution of any other excellence shall preserve all the unities unbroken, deserves the like applause with the architect, who shall display all the orders of architecture in a citadel, without any deduction from its strength: but the principal beauty of a citadel is to exclude the enemy; and the greatest graces of a play are to copy nature and instruct life." - Preface to Shakspeare.]

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of Diodorus Siculus; reducing it, however, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, and trying to approach the unities. I therefore suppose the rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy, instead of the long war of the history.

2 [Sardanapalus is, beyond all doubt, a work of great beauty and power; and though the heroine has many traits in common with the Medoras and Gulnares of Lord Byron's undramatic poetry, the hero must be allowed to be a new character in his hands. He has, indeed, the scorn of war, and glory, and priestcraft, and regular morality, which distinguishes the rest of his lordship's favourites; but he has no misanthropy, and very little pride - and may be regarded, on the whole, as one of the most truly good-humoured, amiable, and respectable voluptuaries to whom we have ever been presented. In this conception of his character, the author has very wisely followed nature and fancy rather than history. His Sardana. palus is not an effeminate, worn-out debauchee, with shattered nerves and exhausted senses, the slave of indolence and vicious habits; but a sanguine votary of pleasure, a princely epicure, indulging, revelling in boundless luxury while he can, but with a soul so inured to voluptuousness, so saturated with delights, that pain and danger, when they come uncalled for, give him neither concern nor dread; and he goes forth from the banquet to the battle, as to a dance or measure, attired by the Graces, and with youth, joy, and love for his guides. He dallies with Bellona as bridegroom-for his sport and pastime; and the spear or fan, the shield or shining mirror, become his hands equally well. He enjoys life, in short, and triumphs in death and whether in prosperous or adverse circumstances, his soul smiles out superior to evil. - JEFFREY.

The Sardanapalus of Lord Byron is pretty nearly such a person as the Sardanapalus of history may be supposed to have been. Young, thoughtless, spoiled by flattery and unbounded self-indulgence, but with a temper naturally amiable, and abilities of a superior order, he affects to undervalue the

Steep'd, but not drown'd, in deep voluptuousness.
If born a peasant, he had been a man

To have reach'd an empire; to an empire born,
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, 1

And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield

not

Health like the chase, nor glory like the war—
He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound

[Sound of soft music heard from within.
To rouse him short of thunder. Hark ! the lute,
The lyre, the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings
Of lulling instruments, the softening voices
Of women, and of beings less than women,
Must chime in to the echo of his revel,
While the great king of all we know of earth
Lolls crown'd with roses, and his diadem
Lies negligently by to be caught up

By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it.
Lo, where they come ! already I perceive
The reeking odours of the perfumed trains,
And see the bright gems of the glittering girls, 2
At once his chorus 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. 3

sanguinary renown of his ancestors as an excuse for inattention to the most necessary duties of his rank, and flatters himself, while he is indulging his own sloth, that he is making his people happy. Yet, even in his fondness for pleasure, there lurks a love of contradiction. Of the whole picture, selfishness is the prevailing feature-selfishness admirably drawn indeed; apologised for by every palliating circumstance of education and habit, and clothed in the brightest colours of which it is susceptible from youth, talents, and placability. But it is selfishness still; and we should have been tempted to quarrel with the art which made vice and frivolity thus amiable, if Lord Byron had not at the same time pointed out with much skill the bitterness and weariness of spirit which inevitably wait on such a character; and if he had not given a fine contrast to the picture in the accompanying portraits of Salemenes and of Myrrhå. BISHOP HEBER.]

[" He sweats in dreary, dulled effeminacy." - MS.] ["And see the gewgaws of the glittering girls."-- MS.] 3 [Salemenes is the direct opposite to selfishness; and the character, though slightly sketched, displays little less ability than that of Sardanapalus. He is a stern, loyal, plain-spoken soldier and subject; clear-sighted, just and honourable in his ultimate views, though not more punctilious about the means of obtaining them than might be expected from a respectable satrap of ancient Nineveh, or a respectable vizier of the mo dern Turkish empire. To his king, in spite of personal neglect and family injuries, he is, throughout, pertinaciously attached and punctiliously faithful. To the king's rebels he is inclined to be severe, bloody, and even treacherous; an imperfection, however, in his character, to want which would, in his situation, be almost unnatural, and which is skilfully introduced as a contrast to the instinctive perception of virtue and honour which flashes out from the indolence of his master. Of the satrap, however, the faults as well as the virtues are alike the offspring of disinterested loyalty and patriotism. It is for his country and king that he is patient of injury; for them he is valiant; for them cruel. He has no ambition of personal power, no thirst of individual fame. In battle and in victory, " Assyria ! " is his only war-cry. When he sends off

SCENE II.

Enter SARDANAPALUS effeminately dressed, his Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe negligently flowing, attended by a Train of Women and young

Slaves.

Sar. (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
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus,
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 ;
Till then, let each be mistress of her time,
And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha 4, choose,
Wilt thou along with them or me?

the queen and princes, he is less anxious for his nephews and sister than for the preservation of the line of Nimrod; and, in his last moments, it is the supposed flight of his sovereiga which alone distresses and overcomes him. - HEBER.]

4 "The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Baotians, who, 15gether with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would make nearly the whole of the Greek nation; and among the orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks. ” — MITFORD'S Greece, vol. i. p. 199.

5 [The chief charm and vivifying angel of the piece is Myrrha, the Greek slave of Sardanapalus - a beautiful, beroic, devoted, and etherial being-in love with the genercus and infatuated monarch-ashamed of loving a barbarian — and using all her influence over him to ennoble as well as to adorn his existence, and to arm him against the terrors of bis close. Her voluptuousness is that of the heart - her hero se of the affections. If the part she takes in the dialogue be sometimes too subdued and submissive for the lofty daring of her character, it is still such as might become a Greek slave - a lovely Ionian girl, in whom the love of liberty and the scorn of death were tempered by the consciousness of what she regarded as a degrading passion, and an inward secse of fitness and decorum with reference to her conditionJEFFREY.]

6 [Myrrha is a female Salemenes, in whom, with admirable skill, attachment to the individual Sardanapalus is substituted for the gallant soldier's loyalty to the descendant of kings and whose energy of expostulation, no less than the natural high tone of her talents, her courage, and her Grecian prše, is softened into a subdued and winning tenderness by the constant and painful recollection of her abasement as a slave in the royal harem; and still more by the lowliness of perfect womanly love in the presence of and towards the object of her passion. No character can be drawn more natural than hers; few ever have been drawn more touching and arriable Of course she is not, nor could be, a Jewish or a Christian heroine; but she is a model of Grecian piety and nobility of spirit, and she is one whom a purer faith would have raised to the level of a Rebecca or a Miriam. - HEBER.]

Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.

Myr. 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.

Sar. Who answers? How now, brother? Sal. The queen's brother, And your most faithful vassal, royal lord. Sar. (addressing his train). As I have said, let all dispose their hours

Till midnight, when again we pray your presence. [The court retiring. Myrrha! I thought

(To MYRRHA', who is going) thou wouldst remain.

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,

And is herself the cause of bitterer tears.

Sar. Cursed be he who caused those tears to flow! Sal. Curse not thyself-millions do that already. Sar. Thou dost forget thee: make me not remember

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.
Sar. Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece 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 for Nimrod's line; Also, another thing thou knowest not.

I love to learn.

Not know the word! Never was word yet rung so in my earsWorse than the rabble's shout, or splitting trumpet: I've heard thy sister talk of nothing else. [vice.

Sal. To change the irksome theme, then, hear of Sar. From whom?

Sal. Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen Unto the echoes of the nation's voice.

Thus, then all the nations, For they are many, whom thy father left In heritage, are loud in wrath against thee. Sar. 'Gainst me! What would the slaves? Sal. Sar. Am I then?

Sal.

A king. And what

In their eyes a nothing; but In mine a man who might be something still. Sar. The railing drunkards! why, what would they have?

Have they not peace and plenty ?

Sal.
Of the first
More than is glorious; of the last, far less
Than the king recks of.

Sar.

Whose then is the crime, But the false satraps, who provide no better?

Sal. And somewhat in the monarch who ne'er looks Beyond his palace walls, or if he stirs

Beyond them, 't is but to some mountain palace,
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.

Sar. I understand thee - thou wouldst have me go

[“I know each glance of those deep Greek-soul'd eyes.' - MS.]

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