"T is the soldier's Your treasure, your abode, your sacred relics
Of arms, and records, monuments, and spoils,
In which they would have revell'd, I bear with me
To you in that absorbing element,

Fart to die for his sovereign, and why not
The woman's with her lover.

Pan.

'T is most strange!

Myr. But not so rare, my Pania, as thou think'st it.
In the meantime, live thou.-Farewell! the pile
Is ready.
Pan. I should shame to leave my sovereign
With but a single female to partake

llis death.

Sar.

Too many far have heralded

Me to the dust, already. Get thee hence;
Enrich thee.

Pan.

Sar.

And live wretched!

Think upon

Thy vow: 't is sacred and irrevocable.
Pan. Since it is so, farewell.
Sar.

Which most personifies the soul as leaving
The least of matter unconsumed before
Its fiery workings :-and the light of this
Most royal of funereal pyres shall be
Not a mere pillar form'd of cloud and flame,
A beacon in the horizon for a day,
And then a mount of ashes, but a light
To lessen ages, rebel nations, and

Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench many
A people's records, and a hero's acts;
Sweep empire after empire, like this first
Of empires, into nothing; but even then
Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up

Search well my chamber, A problem few dare imitate, and none

Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold;
Remember, what you leave you leave the slaves
Who slew me and when you have borne away
All safe off to your boats, blow one long blast
Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace.
The river's brink is too remote, its stream
Too loud at present to permit the echo

To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,-
And as you sail, turn back; but still keep on
Your way along the Euphrates: if you reach
The land of Paphlagonia, where the queen
Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's court,
Say what you saw at parting, and request
That she remember what I said at one
Parting more mournful still.

Is for the excellent Beleses.

And this libation

Why

The one

[The Soldiers and PANIA throng round him, kissing
Myr.
his hand and the hem of his robe.
Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's name
Sar.
My best! my last friends! Than on his mate's in villany?
Let's not unman each other: part at once:
Sar.
All farewells should be sudden, when for ever,
Else they make an eternity of moments,
And clog the last sands of life with tears.
Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am not
Now to be pitied; or far more for what
Is past than present ;-for the future, 't is
In the hands of the deities, if such
There be I shall know soon. Farewell-Farewell.
[Exeunt PANIA and Soldiers.

Now, farewell; one last embrace.
Myr. Embrace, but not the last; there is one more.
Sar. True, the commingling fire will mix car ashes
Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, shall they,
Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion,
Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.
Sar. Say it.
Myr.

It is that no kind hand will gather
The dust of both into one urn.

Sar.
The better:
Rather let them be borne abroad upon
The winds of heaven, and scatter'd into air,
Than be polluted more by human hands
Of slaves and traitors; in this blazing palace,
And its enormous walls of reeking ruin,
We leave a nobler monument than Egyp!

Sar

Is yours.

Myr.

[He mounts the pile.

Art thou ready?

[MYRRHA fires the pile. 'Tis fired! I come.

[The trumpet of PANIA sounds without. [As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself inta the flames, the Curtain falls.

Hark!

NOTES TO SARDANAPALUS.

Note 1, page 266, line 60.

And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha.

(for Arian says it was not quite so,) whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend imtioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so distant from his capital, and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy deserts and lofty mountains, and, still more, how the inhabitants could be at once in

"The Ionian name had been still more compre-moderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be ques hensive, having included the Achaians and the Bootians, who, together 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. 1. p. 199.

Note 2, page 268, lines 83-86.
"Sardanapalus

The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes,
In one day built Anchialus and Tarsus.

Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip."
"For this expedition he took not only a small chosen
body of the phalanx, but all his light troops. In the
first day's march he reached Anchialus, a town said to
have been founded by the king of Assyria, Sardana-
pa.us. The fortifications, in their magnitude and ex-
tent, still in Arrian's time, bore the character of
greatness, which the Assyrians appear singularly to
have affected in works of the kind. A monument
representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted
by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in
the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether
well or ill, interpreted thus: 'Sardanapalus, son of
Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus and
Tarsus. Eat, drink, play all other human joys are
not worth a fillip.' Supposing this version nearly exact,

:

circumstances to abandon themselves to the intem

perate joys which their prince has been supposed to have recommended, is not obvious; but it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the adventurous traveller by their magnificence and elegance. Amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian government, has for so many centuries been daily spreading in the finest countries of the globe, whether more from soil and climate, or from opportunities for commerce, extraordinary means must have been found for communities to flourish there, whence it may seem that the measures of Sardana palus were directed by juster views than have been commonly ascribed to him: but that monarch having been the last of a dynasty, ended by a revolution, obloquy on his memory would follow of course from the policy of his successors and their partisans.

"The inconsistency of traditions concerning Sarda napalus is striking in Diodorus' account of him."-Mitford's Greece, vol. ix. pp. 311, 312, and 313.

292

He was o'erwrought by the Question yesterday,
And may die under it if now repeated.

Lor. Well?

Bar.

Lor.
Follow me.

You see the number is complete. [Exit LOREDANO Bar. (solus.) Follow thee! I have follow'd long

I yield not to you in love of justice, Thy path of desolation, as the wave

Or hate of the ambitious Foscari
Father and son, and all their noxious race;

But the poor wretch has suffer'd beyond nature's
Most stoical endurance.

Lor.

His crime?

Bar.

Without owning

Perhaps without committing any.
But he avow'd the letter to the Duke
Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone for

Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming

The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch
Who shrieks within its riven ribs, as gush

The waters through them; but this son and sire
Might move the elements to pause, and yet
Must I on hardily like them-Oh! would

I could as blindly and remorselessly!

Lo, where he comes!-Be still, my heart! they are
Thy foes, must be thy victims: wilt thou beat
For those who almost broke thee?

Enter Guards, with young FOSCARI as prisoner, &c.
Let him rest.

Guard.
Signor, take time.
Jac. Fos.

I thank thee, friend, I'm feeble;

But thou may'st stand reproved.
When they are

Extinct, you may say this.-Let's in to council
Bar. Yet pause-the number of our colleagues is not
Complete yet; two are wanting ere we can
Proceed.

Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge?
Bar.

With more than Roman fortitude, is ever
First at the board in this unhappy process
Against his last and only son.
Lor.

His last.

No-he

True-true

Bır. Will nothing move you?

Lor. Feels he, think you?

He shows it not.
Bar.
Lor. I have mark'd that-the wretch!
Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his return
To the ducal chambers, as he pass'd the threshold
The old man fainted.

Lor.

It begins to work, then.
Bar. The work is half your own.
Lor.

And should be all mine-
My father and my uncle are no more.
Bar. I have read their epitaph, which says they died
By poison.

Lor. When the Doge declared that he
Should never deem himself a sovereign till

The death of Peter Loredano, both

The brothers sicken'd shortly :-he is sovereign.
Bar. A wretched one.

What should they be who make

Lor. Orphans?

Bar. Lor.

But did the Doge make you so?

Yes.

Guard.

I'll stand the hazard.
Jac. Fos. That's kind :-I meet some pity, but no
mercy:
This is the first.

Guard.

And might be last, did they
Who rule behold us.

Bar.(advancing to the Guard.) There is one who does
Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge
Nor thy accuser; though the hour is past,
Wait their last summons-I am of" the Ten,"
And waiting for that summons, sanction you

Even by my presence: when the last call sounds,
We'll in together.-Look well to the prisoner!

Jac. Fos. What voice is that ?-'T is Barbarigo's! Ah!
Our house's foe, and one of my few judges.

Bar. To balance such a foe, if such there be,
Thy father sits among thy judges.

And his son's. I'm faint,
for a
breath

Let me approach, I pray you,
Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the waters.
Enter an Officer, who whispers BARBARIGO.
Bar. (to the Guard.) Let him approach. I must
not speak with him

Further than thus; I have transgress'd my duty
In this brief parley, and must now redeem it
Within the Council Chamber. [Exit BARBARIGO
[Guard conducting JACOPO FOSCARI to the window
Guard.
There, sir 't is
Open-How feel you?
Jac. Fos.

Like a boy-Oh Venice!

Guard. And your limbs?

Jac. Fos. Limbs! how often have they borne me
Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimm'd
The gondola along in childish race,

And, masqued as a young gondolier, amidst
My gay competitors, noble as I,

Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength;
While the fair populace of crowding beauties,
Plebeian as patrician, cheer'd us on
With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible,
And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands,
Even to the goal!-How many a time have I
Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring,
The wave all roughen'd; with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd hair,
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine,
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup, rising o'er
The waves as they arose, and prouder still

Let them do so, I leave it; though born noble, my ambition
Is limited: I'd rather be an unit
Of an united and imperial "Ten,"
Than shine a lonely, though a gilded cipher.-
Whom have we here? the wife of Foscari?

Where I now am!-It was
My husband's father's palace.
Mem.

The Duke's palace.
Mar. And his son's prison ;-true, I have not forgot it;

Jac. Fos. Bade thee stretch me on their horrid engine. And if there were no other nearer, bitterer

Mar.

But if

He does not, there are those will sentence both.

Mem. They can.
Mar.

Shall put me from my path? Give me, then, way, This is the Doge's palace; I am wife Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's sor, And with them power and will are one And they shall hear this! In wickedness:-my husband's lost! Mem. It will only serve Mem. More to exasperate his judges. Mar.

Justice is judge in Venice.

Mar.

Not so;

If it were so,
There now would be no Venice. But let it
Live on, so the good die not, till the hour
Of nature's summons; but "the Ten's" is quicker,
And we must wait on 't. Ah! a voice of wail!
[A faint cry within.

Sen. Hark!

Mem.

Mat.

Not Foscari's.

Mem.

What

Are judges who give way to anger? they
Who do so are assassins. Give me way.

'Tis mere desperation; she

Will not be admitted o'er the threshold.

And

Sen.
'T was a cry of—
Even if she be so, cannot save her husband.
No, no; not my husband's- But, see, the officer returns.

Mar.
Not his no,
He shriek! No; that should be his father's part,
Not his not his-he'll die in silence.

[A faint groan again within.

What!

Mem.
Mar. His voice! it seem'd so: I will not
Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot cease
To love; but-no-no-no-it must have been
A fearful pang, which wrung a groan from him.
Sen. And, feeling for thy husband's wrongs, wouldst

thou

Have him bear more than mortal pain, in silence?

Mar. We all must bear our tortures. I have not
Left barren the great house of Foscari,
Though they sweep both the Doge and son from life;
I have endured as much in giving life

To those who will succeed them, as they can
In leaving it but mine were joyful pangs;
And yet they wrung me till I could have shriek'd,
But did not, for my hope was to bring forth
Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears,
Mem. All's silent now.
Mar.

Perhaps all 's over; but
I will not deem it: he hath nerved himself,
And now defies them.

[The Officer passes over the stage with another person.
Mem.
I hardly
Thought that "Ten" had even this touch of pity,
Or would permit assistance to this sufferer.
Sen. Pity! Is't pity to recall to feeling
The wretch too happy to escape to death
By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last
Resource against the tyranny of pain?

Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once.
Sen. That's not their policy; they'd have him live
Because all earth, except his native land,
Because he fears not death; and banish him,

To him is one wide prison, and each breath
Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison,
Consuming but not killing.

Mem.
Circumstance
Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not.

Sen. None, save the letter, which he says was written
Address'd to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge
That it would fall into the senate's hands,
And thus he should be reconveyed to Venice.
Mem. But as a culprit.
Sen.
Yes, but to his country,
And that was all he sought, so he arouches.
Mem. The accusation of the bribes was proved.
Sen. Not clearly, and the charge of homicide
Has been annull'd by the death-bed confession
Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slew the late
Chief of "the Ten."

[Exit Officer.
Lady,

They ought to answer; for
is well known
That Almoro Donato, as I said,

That

Was slain by Erizzo for private vengeance.
Mem. There must be more in this strange process

Alas! this

The trial should go further at this moment.

Who shall oppose me?

They

Despair defies even despotism: there is

That in my heart would make its way through hosts
With levell'd spears; and think you a few jailers

Bar.

No,