And gave the Mede to his destructive sword,

  Has often taught his tongue a silken tale,

  Descended from himself, and talk’d of love.

  Since last I saw thee, his licentious passion

  Has haunted all my dreams. —

  This day the court shines forth in all its lustre,

  To welcome her returning warrior home:

  Alas the malice of our stars!

  Mem. To place it

  Beyond the power of Fate to part our loves,

  Be this our bridal-night, my life! my soul! — (Embrace.)

  Pher. Perdition seize them both! And have I loved

  So long, to catch her in another’s arms!

  Another’s arms for ever! O the pang!

  Heart-piercing sight! — But rage shall take its turn —

  It shall be so — and let the crime be his

  Who drives me to the black extremity.

  I fear no farther hell than that I feel. (Exit.)

  Mem. Trembling I grasp thee, and my anxious heart

  Is still in doubt if I may call thee mine.

  O bliss too great! O painful ecstasy!

  I know not what to utter.

  Man. Ah, my lord!

  What means this damp that comes athwart my joy,

  Chastising thus the lightness of my heart? —

  I have a father, and a father, too,

  Tender as Nature ever framed. His will

  Should be consulted. Should I touch his peace,

  I should be wretched in my Memnon’s arms.

  Mem. Talk not of wretchedness.

  Man. Alas! this day

  First gave me birth; and (which is strange to tell)

  The Fates e’er since, as watching its return,

  Have caught it as it flew, and mark’d it deep

  With something great, extremes of good or ill.

  Mem. Why should we bode misfortune to our loves?

  No; I receive thee from the gods, in lieu

  Of all that happiness they ravish’d from me:

  Fame, freedom, father, all return in thee.

  Had not the gods Mandane to bestow.

  They never would have pour’d such vengeance on me:

  They meant me thee, and could not be severe.

  Soon as night’s favourable shades descend,

  The holy priest shall join our hands for ever,

  And life shall prove but one long bridal-day.

  Till then, in scenes of pleasure lose thy grief,

  Or strike the lute, or smile among the flowers;

  They’ll sweeter smell, and fairer bloom, for thee. —

  Alas! I’m torn from this dear tender side

  By weighty reasons and important calls;

  Nay, e’en by love itself. — I quit thee now

  But to deserve thee more. (They embrace.)

  Man. Your friends are here. (Exit Mandane.)

  Mem. Excellent creature! how my soul pants for thee!

  But other passions now begin their claim;

  Doubt, and disdain, and sorrow, and revenge,

  With mingling tumult, tear up all my breast:

  O how unlike the softnesses of love!

  Enter SYPHOCES.

  Syph. Hail, worthy Memnon.

  Mem. Welcome, my Syphoces.

  And much I hope thou bring’st a bleeding heart;

  A heart that bleeds for others’ miseries,

  Bravely regardless of its own, though great;

  That first of characters.

  Syph. And there’s a second,

  Not far behind, — to rescue the distress’d,

  Or die.

  Mem. Yes, die; and visit those brave men

  Who, from the first of time, have bathed their hands

  In tyrants’ blood, and grasp’d their honest swords

  As part of their own being, when the cause,

  The public cause, demanded. O my friend!

  How long shall Egypt groan in chains? How long

  Shall her sons fall in heaps without a foe?

  No war, plague, famine, nothing but Busiris,

  “His people’s father, and the state’s defence!”

  Yet but a remnant of the land survives.

  Syph. What havoc have I seen! Have we not known

  A multitude become a morning’s prey,

  When troubled rest, or a debauch, has sour’d

  The monster’s temper? Then’t is instant death;

  Then fall the brave and good, like ripen’d corn

  Before the sweeping scythe; not the poor mercy

  To starve and pine at leisure in their chains. —

  But what fresh hope, that we receive your summons

  To meet you here this morning?

  Mem. Know, Syphoces,

  ‘T was on this day my warlike father’s blood,

  So often lavish’d in his country’s cause,

  And greatly sold for conquest and renown;

  ‘T was on this execrable day it flow’d —

  On his own pavement, in a peaceful hour,

  Smoked in the dust, and wash’d a ruffian’s feet.

  This guilty day, returning, rouses all

  My smother’d rage, and blows it to a flame.

  Where are our friends? Syph. At hand. Rameses,

  Last night, — when gentle Best o’er Nature spread

  Her still command, and Care alone was waking, —

  Like a dumb, lonely, discontented ghost,

  Enter’d my chamber, and approach’d my bed.

  With bursts of passion, and a peal of groans,

  He recollects his godlike brother’s fate,

  The drunken banquet, and the midnight murder,

  And urges vengeance on the guilty prince.

  Such was the fellness of his boiling rage,

  Methought the night grew darker as he frown’d.

  Mem. I know he bears the prince most deadly hate;

  But this will enter deeper in his soul, (Shows a letter.)

  And rouse up passions which till now have slept:

  Murder will look like innocence to this.

  Syph. How, Memnon?

  Mem. This reminds me of thy fate:

  The queen has courted thee with proffer’d realms,

  And sought by threats to bend thee to her will;

  She languishes, she burns, she wastes away

  In fruitless hopes, and dies upon thy name.

  Syph. O fatal love! which, stung by jealousy,

  Expell’d a life far dearer than my own

  By cursed poison. — Ah divine Apame!

  And could the murderess hope she should inherit

  This heart, and fill thy place within these arms? —

  But Grief shall yield — Revenge, I’m wholly thine!

  Mem. The tyrant, too, is wanton in his age;

  He shows that all his thoughts are not in blood;

  Love claims its share: he envies poor Rameses

  The softness of his bed; and thinks Amelia

  A mistress worthy of a monarch’s arms.

  Syph. But see, Rameses comes; a sullen gloom

  Scowls on his brow, and marks him through the dusk.

  Enter RAMESES, PHERON, and other Conspirators.

  Mem. To what, my friend, shall Memnon bid you welcome?

  To tombs, and melancholy scenes of death?

  I have no costly banquets, such as spread

  Prince Myron’s table, when your brother fell.

  (To Rameses.)

  I have no gilded roof, no gay apartment,

  Such as the queen prepared for thee. Syphoces.

  Yet be not discontent, my valiant friends:

  Busiris reigns, and’t is not out of season

  To look on aught may mind us of our fate:

  His sword is ever drawn, and furious Myris

  Thinks the day lost that is not mark’d with blood.

  Ram. And have we felt a tyrant twenty years,

  Felt him as the raw wound the burning steel?

  And are we murmuring out our midnight curses,

  Drying our tears in corners, and complaining?

  Our hands are forfeited — Gods! strike them off.

  No hands we need to fasten our own chains,

  Our masters will do that; and we want souls

  To raise them to au use more worthy men.

  Mem. Ruffles your temper at offences past!

  Here, then, to sting thee into madness.

  (Gives the letter. Rameaes reads.)

  Ram. O!

  Syph. See how the struggling passions shake his frame!

  Ram. My bosom joy, that crowns my happy bed

  With tender pledges of our mutual love,

  Far dearer than my soul! And shall my wife,

  The mother of my little innocents,

  Be taken from us? torn from me, from mine,

  Who live but on her sight? And shall I hear

  Her cries for succour, and not rush upon him?

  My infant hanging at the neck upbraids me,

  And struggles with his little arms to save her. —

  These veins have still some generous blood in store,

  The dregs of those rich streams his wars have drain’d;

  I’ll give’t in dowry with her.

  Pher. Well resolved:

  A tardy vengeance shares the tyrant’s guilt.

  Ram. Let me embrace thee, Pheron; thou art brave,

  And dost disdain the coldness of delay.

  Curse on the man that calls Rameses friend,

  And keeps his temper at a tale like this;

  When rage and rancour are the proper virtues,

  And loss of reason is the mark of men!

  Mem. Thus I’ve determined: When the midnight hour

  Lulls this proud city, and her monarch dreams

  Of humbler foes, or his new mistress’ love,

  Then we will rush at once, let loose the terrors

  Of rage pent in, and struggling twenty years

  To find a vent, and at one dreadful blow

  Begin and end the war.

  A more auspicious juncture could not happen.

  The Persian, who for years has join’d our counsels,

  Stirr’d up the love of freedom, and in private

  Long nursed that glorious appetite with gold,

  This mom with transport snatch’d the wish’d occasion

  Of throwing his resentment wide; and now

  He frowns in arms, and gives the’ event to Fate.

  Ram. This hand shall drag the tyrant from the throne,

  And stab the royal victim on this altar.

  (Pointing to the tomb.)

  Mem. O justly thought! Friends, cast your eyes around;

  All that most awful is or great in nature,

  This solemn scene presents: the gods are here,

  And here our famed forefathers’ sacred tombs,

  Who never brook’d a tyrant in this land.

  Let us not act beneath the grand assembly!

  The flighted altars tremble, and these tombs

  Send forth a peal of groans to urge us on.

  Come, then, surround my father’s monument,

  And call his shade to witness to your vows.

  Ram. Nor his alone, O all ye mighty dead!

  Illustrious shades! who nightly stalk around

  The tyrant’s couch, and shake his guilty soul;

  Whether already you converse with gods,

  Or stray below in melancholy glooms:

  From earth, from air, from heaven, and even hell,

  Come, I conjure you, by the prisoner’s chain,

  The widow’s sighing, and the orphan’s tears,

  The virgin’s shrieks, the hero’s spouting veins;

  By gods blasphemed, and free-born men enslaved.

  Mem. Hear, Jove, and you, most injured heroes, hear

  While we o’er this thrice-hallow’d monument

  Thus join our hands, and, kneeling to the gods,

  Fast bind our souls to great revenge!

  All. We swear —

  Mem. This night the tyrant and his minions bleed.

  Pher. (Aside.) So, now my foe is taken in the toil,

  And I’ve a second cast for this proud maid.

  It is an oath well spent, a perjury

  Of good account in vengeance and in love.

  Mem. We wrong the mighty dead, if we permit

  Our eyes alone to count this grand assembly:

  A thousand unseen heroes walk among us.

  My father rises from his tomb; his wounds

  Bleed all afresh, and consecrate the day:

  He waves his arm, and chides our tardy vengeance.

  More than this world shall thank us. O my friends!

  Such our condition, we have nought to lose;

  And great may be our gain, if this be great, —

  To crush a tyrant, and preserve a state;

  To still the clamours of our fathers’ blood;

  To fix the basis of the public good;

  To leave a fame eternal; then to soar,

  Mix with the gods, and bid the world adore.

  ACT II.

  SCENE I.

  Scene, the Palace.

  A magnificent throne discovered, and severed courtiers walking to and fro.

  Enter SYPHOCES and RAMESES. Shouts at a distance.

  Ram. WHAT means this dust and tumult in the court,

  These streamers fooling in the wind, these shouts,

  The tyrant blazing in full insolence,

  And all his gaudy courtiers basking round him,

  Like poisonous vermin in a dog-day sun?

  Syph. Your father and prince Myron are arrived,

  And with one peal of joy the nation rings.

  Ram. Long has my father served this tyrant king

  With zeal well worthy of a better cause.

  Though with his helm he hides a hoary brow,

  Long versed in death, the father of the field,

  At the shrill trumpet he throws off the weight

  Of fourscore years, and springs upon the foe.

  The transport danger gives him conquers nature,

  And a short youth boils up within his veins.

  Syph. Behold, this way they pass to meet the king.

  MYRON and NICANOR pass the stage with attendants.

  Ram. (Looking on Myron.) What pity’t is that one so lost in guilt

  Should thus engage the sight with manly charms,

  And make vice lovely!

  Syph. Pardon me, Rameses:

  Though to my foe, I must be ever just.

  He’s generous, grateful, affable, and brave:

  But then he knows no limit to his passion;

  The tempest-beaten bark is not so toss’d

  As is his reason, when those winds arise:

  And though he draws a fatal sword in battle,

  And kindles in the warm pursuit of fame,

  Pleasure subdues him quite; the sparkling eye,

  And generous bowl, bear down his graver mind,

  While fiery spirits dance along his veins,

  And keep a constant revel in his heart.

  Ram. But here the tyrant comes! With what excess

  Of idle pride will he receive his son!

  How with big words will he swell out this conquest,

  And into grandeur puff his little tales!

  Enter KING, and ascends the throne; on the other side,

  Sample correction and NICANOR.

  King. Welcome, my son; great partner of my fame!

  I thank thee for the’ increase of my dominions;

  That now more mountains rise, more rivers flow,

  And more stars shine, in my still-growing empire.

  The sun himself surveys it not at once,

  But travels for the view, whilst for-disjoin’d

  My subjects live unheard-of by each other;

  These wrapp’d in shades, whilst those enjoy the light:

  Their day is various, but their king the same.

  Myr. Here, sir, your thanks are due; to this old arm,

  Whose nerve not threescore winter camps unbend,

  You owe your victory, and I my life.

  When my fierce courser, with a javelin stung,

  First rear’d in air, then, tearing with a bound

  The trembling earth, plunged deep amidst the foe;

  And now a thousand deaths from every side

  Had but one mark, and on my buckler rung;

  Through the throng’d legions, like a tempest, rush’d

  This friend, o’er gasping heroes, rolling steeds,

  And snatch’d me from my fate.

  Bus. I thank thee, general.

  Thou hast a heart that swells with loyalty,

  And throws off the infection of these times;

  But thy degenerate boy —

  Nic. No more my son;

  I cut him off; my guilt, my punishment.

  Look not, dread sir, on me through his offence:

  O let not that discolour all my service,

  And ruin those who blame him for his crimes!

  Bus. Old man, I will not wear the crown in vain;

  Subjects shall work my will, or feel my power;

  Their disobedience shall not be my guilt.

  Who is their welfare, glory, and defence?

  The land that yields them food, and every stream

  That slakes their thirst, the air they breathe, is mine.

  And is concurrence to their own enjoyment,

  By due submission, a too great return?

  Death and Destruction are within my call. —

  But thou shalt flourish in thy masters smile.

  A faithful minister adorns my crown,

  And throws a brighter glory round my brow.

  Nic. Take but one more, one small one, to your favour,

  And then my soul’s at peace. — I have a daughter,

  An only daughter, now an only child,

  Since her lost brother’s folly: she deserves

  The most a father can for so much goodness.

  Her mother’s dead, and we are left alone;

  We two are the whole house: nor are we two;

  In her I live, the comfort of my age:

  And if the king extend his grace so far,

  And take that tender blossom into shelter,

  Then I have all my monarch can bestow,

  Or Heaven itself; but this, — that I may wear

  My life’s poor remnant out in your command,

  Stretch forth my being to the last in duty,

  And, when the Fates shall summon, die for you.

  Bus. Nicanor, know, thy daughter is our care.

  Myr. O, sir, be greatly kind, exert your power,

  And with the monarch furnish out the friend! —

  Art thou not he, that gallant-minded chief, (To Nicanor.)

 

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