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PREFACE.

IN publishing the following Tragedies1 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.

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 anything 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.

PANIA.

SFERO.

ZARINA, the Queen.

ZAMES. BALEA.

WOMEN.

MYRRHA, an Ionian female Slave, and the Favourite
of SARDANAPALUS.
Women composing the Harem of SARDANAPALUS,
Guards, Attendants, Chaldean Priests, Medes, &c.

SCENE.-A Hall in the Royal Palace of Nineveh.

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.

Sardanapalus.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

MEN.

SARDANAPALUS, King of Nineveh and Assyria, &c. ARBACES, the Mede who aspired to the Throne.

(1) Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari.

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-
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,
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 into 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,
At once his chorus and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garbed, 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.

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.

The king's choice is mine.
Sar. 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.
Myr. I would remain : 1 have no happiness
Save in beholding thine; yet-

Sar.

Yet! what YET?
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. [To MYRRHA, who is going]. Myrrha! I thought thou wouldst remain.

Myr.

Thou didst not say so.

Sar.

Great king,

But thou lookedst it:

I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.

Myr.
Sire! your brother-
Sul. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia?
How darest thou name me and not blush?
Sar.
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 blind-

ness,

the pavilion over the Euprates

Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth

For an especial banquet; at the hour

Of midnight we will sup there: see nought want

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

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-
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,
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 into 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,
At once his chorus and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garbed, 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.

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.

Accompany our guests, or charm away The moments from me?

Myr.

The king's choice is mine.
Sar. 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.
Myr. I would remain: 1 have no happiness
Save in beholding thine; yet-

Sar.
Yet! what YET?
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.

Myr.

Thou didst not say so.

Sar.

Great king,

But thou lookedst it :

I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.

Myr.
Sire! your brother-
Sul. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia?
How darest thou name me and not blush?

Not blush!

Sar. 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 blind-

ness,

the pavilion over the Euprates

Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth

For an especial banquet; at the hour

Of midnight we will sup there: see nought want

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

Though 'twere against myself.
Sar.

The man would make me tyrant.
Sal.

By the god Baal!

So thou art.
Think'st 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.
Sar. Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece of
the people ?

Sal. Forgiveness of the queen's, my sister's

Sar. Am I then? Sal.

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, 'tis 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

made

Good her retreat to Bactria.

Sar.

And how many

Left she behind in India to the vultures?
Sal. Our annals say not.
Sar.
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 might'st sway,
Sar.
I sway them-

She but subdued them.
Sal.
It may be ere long
That they will need her sword more than your
sceptre.

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

I've heard my Greek girls speak of such-they

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.