Collected Plays and Stories

 

CONTENTS

 

Pre-content

 

PLAYS

THE VIZIERS OF BASSORA

 

Rodogune

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II  

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

 

 

Perseus the Deliverer

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

 

Eric

Act One

Act Two

Act Three

Act Four

Act Five

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE I

 

Vasavadutta

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Plays

The Witch of Ilni

Act One

 

Act Two

 

Act Three

SCENE I

SCENE II

 

SCENE I

 

 SCENE I

SCENE II

 

The House of Brut

Act  twO

 

SCENE I

 

The Maid in the Mill

Act One

 

 

 

Act Two

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE Iii

SCENE Iv

SCENE v

 

 

 

SCENE I

 

The Prince of Edur

The Prince of Mathura

Act  One

SCENE I

 

The Birth of Sin

Act ONE

 

Fragment of a Play

Act  One

SCENE I

 

STORIES

Occult Idylls

The Phantom Hour

 The Door at Abelard

 

Incomplete and Fragmentary Stories

Fictional Jottings

Fragment of a Story

The Devil's Mastiff

The Golden Bird

 

 

 

Rodogune

 

A Dramatic Romance

 

Persons of the Drama

 

NICANOR, of the royal house, general-in-chief of the Syrian armies.

THOAS

LEOSTHENES

PHAYLLUS, an official, afterwards Minister of Timocles.

PHILOCTETES, a youg Greek noble of Egypt, friend of Antiochus.

MELITUS, a Court official.

CALLICRATES, a young Greek noble of Syria.

THERAS, a gentleman in waiting.

AN EREMITE.

CLEOPATRA, an Egyptian princess, sister of the reigning Ptolemy, Queen of Syria; widow successively of King Nicanor and his brother Antiochus.

RODOGUNE, a princess of Parthia, prisoner in Antioch.

EUNICE, daughter of Nicanor.

CLEONE, sister of Phayllus, in attendance on the Queen.

MENTHO, an Egyptian woman, nurse of Antiochus.

ZOYLA, an attendant of Cleopatra.

 


Act I

 

Antioch. The Palace; a house by the sea.

 

Scene 1

 

The Palace in Antioch; Cleopatra's antechamber.

Cleone is seated; to her enters Eunice.

 

CLEONE

Always he lives!

 

EUNICE

No, his disease, not he.

For the divinity that sits in man

From that afflicted body has withdrawn, —

Its pride, its greatness, joy, command, the Power

Unnameable that struggles with its world:

The husk, the creature only lives. But that husk

Has a heart, a mind and all accustomed wants,

And having these must be, —  O, it is pitiful, —

Stripped of all real homage, forced to see

That none but Death desires him any more.

 

CLEONE

You pity?

 

EUNICE

Seems it strange to you? I pity.

I loved him not, —  who did? But I am human

And feel the touch of tears. A death desired

Is still a death and man is always man

 

Page – 189


Although an enemy. If I ever slew,

I think 'twould be with pity in the blow

That it was needed.

 

CLEONE

That's a foolish thought.

 

EUNICE

If it were weakness and delayed the stroke.

 

CLEONE

The Queen waits by him still?

 

EUNICE

No longer now.

For while officiously she served her lord,

The dying monarch cast a royal look

Of sternness on her. "Cease," he said, "O woman,

To trouble with thy ill-dissembled joy

My passing. Call thy sons! Before they come

I shall have gone into the shadow. Yet

Too much exult not, lest the angry gods

Chastise thee with the coming of thy sons

At which thou now rejoicest."

 

CLEONE

Where is she then

Or who waits on her?

 

EUNICE

Rodogune.

 

CLEONE

That slave!

No nobler attendance?

 

Page – 190


EUNICE

I think I hear the speech

Of upstarts. Are you, Cleone, of that tribe?

 

CLEONE

I marvel at your strange attraction, Princess,

You fondle and admire a statue of chalk

In a black towel dismally arranged!

 

EUNICE

She has roses in her pallor, but they are

The memory of a blush in ivory.

She is all silent, gentle, pale and pure,

Dim-natured with a heart as soft as sleep.

 

CLEONE

She is a twilight soul, not frank, not Greek,

Some Magian's daughter full of midnight spells.

I think she is a changeling from the dead.

I hate the sorceress!

 

EUNICE

We shall have a king

Who's young, Cleone; Rodogune is fair.

What think you of it, you small bitter heart?

 

CLEONE

He will prefer the roses and the day,

I hope!

 

EUNICE

Yourself, you think? O, see her walk!

A floating lily in moonlight was her sister.

Rodogune enters.

RODOGUNE

His agony ends at last.

 

Page – 191


CLEONE

Why have you left

Your mistress and your service, Rodogune?

 

RODOGUNE

She will not have me near her now; she says

I look at her with eyes too wondering and too large.

So she expects alone her husband's end

And her release. Alas, the valiant man,

The king, the trampler of the fields of death!

He called to victory and she ran to him,

He made of conquest his camp-follower. How

He lies forsaken! None regard his end;

His flatterers whisper round him, his no more;

His almost widow smiles. Better would men,

Could they foresee their ending, understand

The need of mercy.

 

CLEONE

My sandal-string is loose;

Kneel down and tie it, Parthian Rodogune.

 

EUNICE

You too may feel the need of mercy yet,

Cleone.

Cleopatra enters swiftly from the

corridors of the Palace.

CLEOPATRA

Antiochus is dead, is dead, and I

Shall see at last the faces of my sons.

O, I could cry upon the palace-tops

My exultation! Gaze not on me so,

Eunice. I have lived for eighteen years

With silence and my anguished soul within

While all the while a mother's heart in me

Cried for her children's eyelids, wept to touch

 

Page – 192


The little bodies that with pain I bore.

The long chill dawnings came without that joy.

Only my hateful husband and his crown, —

His crown!

 

EUNICE

To the world he was a man august,

High-thoughted, grandiose, valiant. Leave him to death,

And thou enjoy thy children.

 

CLEOPATRA

He would not let my children come to me,

Therefore I spit upon his corpse. Eunice,

Have you not thought sometimes how strange it will feel

To see my tall strong sons come striding in

Who were two lisping babes, two pretty babes?

Sometimes I think they are not changed at all

And I shall see my small Antiochus

With those sweet sunlight curls, his father's curls,

And eyes in which an infant royalty

Expressed itself in glances, Timocles

Holding his brother's hand and toiling to me

With eyes like flowers wide-opened by the wind

And rosy lips that laugh towards my breast.

Will it not be strange, so sweet and strange?

 

EUNICE

And when

Will they arrive from Egypt?

 

CLEOPATRA

Ah, Eunice,

From Egypt! They are here, Eunice.

 

EUNICE

Here!

 

Page – 193


CLEOPATRA

Not in this room, dear fool; in Antioch, hid

Where never cruel eyes could come at them.

O, did you think a mother's hungry heart

Could lose one fluttering moment of delight

After such empty years? Theramenes, —

The swift hawk he is, —  by that good illness helped

Darted across and brought them. They're here, Eunice!

I saw them not even then, not even then

Could clasp, but now Antiochus is dead,

Is dead, my lips shall kiss them! Messengers

Abridge the road with tempest in their hooves

To bring them to me!

 

EUNICE

Imperil not with memories of hate

The hour of thy new-found felicity;

For souls dislodged are dangerous and the gods

Have their caprices.

 

CLEOPATRA

Will the Furies stir

Because I hated grim Antiochus?

When I have slain my kin, then let them wake.

The man who's dead was nothing to my heart:

My husband was Nicanor, my beautiful

High-hearted lord with his bright auburn hair

And open face. When he died miserably

A captive in the hated Parthian's bonds,

My heart was broken. Only for my babes

I knit the pieces strongly to each other,

My little babes whom I must send away

To Egypt far from me! But for Antiochus,

That gloomy, sullen and forbidding soul,

Harsh-featured, hard of heart, rough mud of camps

And marches, —  he was never lord of me.

He was a reason of State, an act of policy;

 

Page – 194


And he exiled my children. You have not been

A mother!

 

EUNICE

I will love with you, Cleopatra,

Although to hate unwilling.

 

CLEOPATRA

Love me and with me

As much as your pale quiet Parthian's loved

Whom for your sake I have not slain.

 

CLEONE

She too,

The Parthian! —  blames you. Was it not she who said,

Your joy will bring a curse upon your sons?

 

CLEOPATRA

Hast thou so little terror?

 

EUNICE

Never she said it!

 

CLEOPATRA

Fear yet; be wise! I cannot any more

Feel anger! Never again can grief be born

In this glad world that gives me back my sons.

I can think only of my children's arms.

There is a diphony of music swells

Within me and it cries a double name,

Twin sounds, Antiochus and Timocles,

Timocles and Antiochus, the two

Changing their places sweetly like a pair

Of happy lovers in my brain.

 

CLEONE

But which

 

Page – 195


Shall be our king in Syria?

 

CLEOPATRA

Both shall be kings,

My kings, my little royal faces made

To rule my breast. Upon a meaner throne

What matters who shall reign for both?

Zoyla enters.

¨

ZOYLA

Madam,

The banner floats upon that seaward tower.

 

CLEOPATRA

O my soul, fly to perch there! Shall it not seem

My children's robes as motherwards they run to me

Tired of their distant play?

She leaves the room followed by Zoyla.

EUNICE

You, you, Cleone! gods are not in the world

If you end happily.

 

RODOGUNE

Do not reproach her.

I have no complaint against one human creature;

Nature and Fate do all.

 

EUNICE

Because you were born,

My Rodogune, to suffer and be sweet

As was Cleone to offend. O snake,

For all thy gold and roses!

 

RODOGUNE

I did not think

Her guiltless sons must pay her debt. Account

 

Page – 196


Is kept in heaven and our own offences

Too heavy a load for us to bear.

Rodogune and Eunice go out.

CLEONE

The doll,

The Parthian puppet whom she fondles so,

She hardly has a glance for me! I am glad

This gloomy, grand Antiochus is dead.

O now for pastime, dances, youth and flowers!

Youth, youth! for we shall have upon the throne

No grey beard longer, but some glorious boy

Made for delight with whom we shall be young

For ever.

(to Phayllus, as he enters)

Rejoice, brother; he is dead.

 

PHAYLLUS

It was my desire and fear that killed him then;

For he was nosing into my accounts.

When shall we have these two king-cubs and which

Is the crowned lion?

 

CLEONE

That is hidden, Phayllus;

You know it.

 

PHAYLLUS

I know; I wish I also knew

Why it was hidden. Perhaps there is no cause

Save the hiding! Women feign and lie by nature

As the snake coils, no purpose served by it.

Or was it the grim king who'ld have it so?

 

CLEONE

They are in Antioch.

 

Page – 197


PHAYLLUS

That I knew.

 

CLEONE

You knew?

 

PHAYLLUS

Before Queen Cleopatra. They do not sleep

Who govern kingdoms; they have ears and eyes.

 

CLEONE

Knew and they live!

 

PHAYLLUS

Why should one slay in vain?

A dying man has nothing left to fear

Or hope for. He belongs to other cares.

Whichever of these Syrian cubs be crowned,

He will be hungry, young and African;

He will need caterers.

 

CLEONE

Shall they not be found?

 

PHAYLLUS

In Egypt they have other needs than ours.

There lust's almost as open as feasting is;

Science and poetry and learned tastes

Are not confined to books, but life's an art.

There are faint mysteries, there are lurid pomps;

Strong philtres pass and covert drugs. Desire

Is married to fulfilment, pain's enjoyed

And love sometimes procures his prey for death.

He'll want those strange and vivid colours here,

Not dull diplomacies and hard rough arms.

Then who shall look to statecraft's arid needs

If not Phayllus?

 

Page – 198


CLEONE

We shall rise?

 

PHAYLLUS

It is that

I came to learn from you. I have a need for growth;

I feel a ray come nearer to my brow,

The world expands before me. Will you assist, —

For you have courage, falsehood, brains, —  my growth?

Your own assisted, —  that is understood.

 

CLEONE

Because I am near the Queen?

 

PHAYLLUS

That helps, perhaps,

But falls below the mark at which I aim.

If you were nearer to the King, —  why, then!

 

CLEONE

Depend on me.

 

PHAYLLUS

Cleone, we shall rise.

 

Page – 199


Scene 2

 

The colonnade of a house in Antioch, overlooking the sea.

Antiochus, Philoctetes.

 

ANTIOCHUS

The summons comes not and my life still waits.

 

PHILOCTETES

Patience, beloved Antiochus. Even now

He fronts the darkness.

 

ANTIOCHUS

Nothing have I spoken

As wishing for his death. His was a mould

That should have been immortal. But since all

Are voyagers to one goal and wishing's vain

To hold one traveller back, I keep my hopes.

O Philoctetes, we who missed his life,

Should have the memory of his end! Unseen

He goes from us into the shades, unknown:

We are denied his solemn hours.

 

PHILOCTETES

All men

Are not like thee, my monarch, and this king

Was great but dangerous as a lion is

Who lives in deserts mightily alone.

Admire him from that distance.

 

ANTIOCHUS

O fear and base suspicion, evillest part

Of Nature, how you spoil our grandiose life!

 

Page – 200


All heights are lowered, our wide embrace restrained,

God's natural sunshine darkened by your fault.

We were not meant for darkness, plots and hatred

Reading our baseness in another's mind,

But like good wrestlers, hearty comrades, hearty foes,

To take and give in life's great lists together

Blows and embraces.

 

PHILOCTETES

A mother's love, a mother's fears

Earn their excuse.

 

ANTIOCHUS

I care not for such love.

O Philoctetes, all this happy night

I could not sleep; for proud dreams came to me

In which I sat on Syria's puissant throne,

Or marched through Parthia with the iron pomps

Of war resounding in my train, or swam

My charger through the Indus undulant,

Or up to Ganges and the torrid south

Restored once more the Syrian monarchy.

It is divinity on earth to be a king.

 

PHILOCTETES

But if the weaker prove the elder born?

If Timocles were Fate's elected king?

 

ANTIOCHUS

Dear merry Timocles! he would not wish

To wear the iron burden of a crown;

If he has joy, it is enough for him.

Sunshine and laughter and the arms of friends

Guard his fine monarchy of cheerful mind.

 

PHILOCTETES

If always Fate were careful to fit in

 

Page – 201


The nature with the lot! But she sometimes

Loves these strange contrasts and crude ironies.

 

ANTIOCHUS

Has not nurse Mentho often sworn to me

That I, not he, saw earth the first?

 

PHILOCTETES

And when

Did woman's tongue except in wrath or malice

Deliver truth that's bitter?

 

ANTIOCHUS

Philoctetes,

Do you not wish me to be king?

 

PHILOCTETES

Why left I then

Nile in his fields and Egypt slumbering

Couchant upon her sands, but to pursue

Your gallant progress sailing through life's seas

Shattering opponents till your flag flew high,

Sole admiral-ship of all this kingly world?

But since upon this random earth unjust

We travel stumbling to the pyre, not led

By any Power nor any law, and neither

What we desire nor what we deserve

Arrives, but unintelligible dooms

O'ertake us and the travesty of things,

It is better not to hope too much.

 

ANTIOCHUS

 

It is better

To lift our hopes heaven-high and to extend them

As wide as earth. Heaven did not give me in vain

This royal nature and this kingly form,

These thoughts that wear a crown. They were not meant

 

Page – 202


For mockery nor to fret a subject's heart.

Do you not hear the ardour of those hooves?

My kingdom rides to me.

He hastens to the other end of the colonnade.

PHILOCTETES

O glorious youth

Whose young heroic arms would gird the world,

I like a proud and anxious mother follow,

Desiring, fearing, drawn by cords of hope and love,

Admire and doubt, exult and quake and chide.

She is so glad of her brave, beautiful child,

But trembles lest his courage and his beauty

Alarm the fatal jealousy that watches us

From thrones unseen.

Thoas and Melitus enter from the gates.

THOAS

Are these the Syrian twins?

 

PHILOCTETES

The elder of them only, Antiochus

Of Syria.

 

THOAS

Son of Nicanor! Antiochus

The high Seleucid travels the dull stream

And Syria's throne is empty for his heir.

 

ANTIOCHUS

A glorious sun has fallen then from heaven

Saddening the nations, even those he smote.

It is the rule of Nature makes us rise

Despite our hearts replacing what we love,

And I am happy who am called so soon

To rule a nation of such princely men.

Are you not Thoas?

 

Page – 203


THOAS

Thoas of Macedon.

 

ANTIOCHUS

Thoas, we shall be friends. Will it be long

Before we march together through the world

To stable our horses in Persepolis?

He turns to speak to Timocles who has

just entered and goes into the house.

 

MELITUS

This is a royal style and kingly brow.

 

THOAS

The man is royal. What a face looks forth

From under that bright aureole of hair!

 

TIMOCLES

I greet you, Syrians. Shall I know your names?

 

MELITUS

Melitus. This is Thoas.

 

TIMOCLES

Melitus?

Oh yes, of Macedon.

 

MELITUS

No, Antioch.

 

TIMOCLES

It is the same.

We talked of you in Alexandria and in Thebes,

All of you famous captains. Your great names

Are known to us, as now yourselves must be

Known and admired and loved.

 

Page – 204


MELITUS

Your courtesy

Overwhelms me; but I am no captain, only

The King's poor chamberlain, your servant come

To greet you.

 

TIMOCLES

Not therefore less a cherished friend

Whose duty helps our daily happiness.

Thoas, your name is in our country's book

Inscribed too deeply to demand poor praise

From one who never yet has drawn his sword

In anger.

 

THOAS

I am honoured, Prince. Do not forget

Your mother is waiting for you after eighteen years.

 

TIMOCLES

My mother! O, I have a mother at last.

You lords shall tell me as we go, how fair

She is or dark like our Egyptian dames,

Noble and tall or else a brevity

Of queenhood. And her face —  but that, be sure,

Is the sweet loving face I have seen so often

In Egypt when I lay awake at night

And heard the breezes whispering outside

With many voices in the moonlit hours.

It is late, Thoas, is it not, a child to see

His mother when eighteen years have made him big?

This, this is Paradise, a mother, friends

And Syria. In our swart Egypt 'twas no life, —

Although I liked it well when I was there;

But O, your Syria! I have spent whole hours

Watching your gracile Syrian women pass

With their bright splendid faces. And your flowers,

What flowers! and best of all, your sun, not like

 

Page – 205


That burning Egypt, but a warmth, a joy

And a kind brightness. It will be all pleasure

To reign in such a country.

 

ANTIOCHUS (returning from the house)

Let us ride

Into our kingdom.

 

TIMOCLES

Antioch in sweet Syria,

The realm for gods, and Daphne's golden groves,

And swift Orontes hastening to the sea!

Ride by me, Melitus, tell me everything.

 

Page – 206


Scene 3

Cleopatra's antechamber in the Palace.

Cleopatra, seated; Rodogune.

 

CLEOPATRA

It is their horsehooves ride into my heart.

It shall be done. What have I any more

To do with hatred? Parthian Rodogune,

Have you forgotten now your former pomps

And princely thoughts in high Persepolis,

Or do your dreams still linger near a throne?

 

RODOGUNE

I think all fallen beings needs must keep

Some dream out of their happier past, —  or else

How hard it would be to live!

 

CLEOPATRA

O, if some hope survive

In the black midst of care, however small,

We can live, then only, O then only.

 

RODOGUNE

Hope!

I have forgotten how men hope.

 

CLEOPATRA

Is your life hard

In Syrian Antioch, Rodogune, a slave

To your most bitter foemen?

 

Page – 207


RODOGUNE

Not when you speak

So gently. Always I strive to make it sweet

By outward harmony with circumstance

And a calm soul within that is above

My fortunes.

 

CLEOPATRA

Parthian, you have borne the hate

My husband's murder bred in me towards all

Your nation. When I felt you with my heel,

I trampled Tigris and Euphrates then

And Parthia suffered. Therefore I let you live

Half-loving in your body my revenge.

But these are cruel and unhappy thoughts

I hope to slay and bury with the past

Which gave them birth. Will you assist me, girl?

Will you begin with me another life

And other feelings?

 

RODOGUNE

If our fates allow

Which are not gentle.

CLEOPATRA

My life begins again,

My life begins again in my dear sons

And my dead husband lives. All's sweetly mended.

I do not wish for hatred any more.

The horrible and perilous hands of war

Appal me. O, let our peoples sit at ease

In Grecian Antioch and Persepolis,

Mothers and children, clasping those golden heads

Deep, deep within our bosoms, never allow

Their going forth again to bonds and death.

Peace, peace, let us have peace for ever more.

 

Page – 208


RODOGUNE

And will peace take me to my father's arms?

 

CLEOPATRA

Or else detain you on a kingly throne.

There are happier fetters.

 

RODOGUNE

If it must be so!

 

CLEOPATRA

Art thou insensible or fearst to rise?

I cannot think that even in barbarous lands

Any called human are so made that they prefer

Serfhood and scourge to an imperial throne.

Or is there such a soul?

 

RODOGUNE

Shall I not know

My husband first?

 

CLEOPATRA

I did not ask your choice,

But gave you a command to be obeyed

Like any other that each day I give.

 

RODOGUNE

Shall I be given him as a slave, not wife?

 

CLEOPATRA

You rise, I think, too quickly with your fate.

Or art thou other than I saw or thou

Feignedst to be? Hast thou been wearing all this while

Only a mask of smooth servility,

Thou subtle barbarian?

 

Page – 209


RODOGUNE

Speak not so harshly to me

Who spoke so gently now. I will obey.

 

CLEOPATRA

Hop'st thou by reigning to reign over me

Restoring on a throne thy Parthian soul?

 

RODOGUNE

What shall I be upon the Syrian throne

Except your first of slaves who am now the last,

The least considered? I hope not to reign,

Nor ever have desired ambitious joys,

Only the love that I have lacked so long

Since I left Parthia.

 

CLEOPATRA

Obey me then. Remember,

The hand that seats thee can again unthrone.

 

RODOGUNE

I shall remember and I shall obey.

She retires to her station.

CLEOPATRA

Her flashes of quick pride are quickly past.

After so many cruel, black and pitiless years

Shall not the days to come conspire for joy?

The Queen shall be my slave, a mind that's trained

To watch for orders, one without a party

In Syria, with no will to take my son from me

Or steal my sovereign station. O, they come!

Slowly, my heart! break not with too much bliss.

Eunice comes in swiftly.

EUNICE

Am I the first to tell you they have come?

 

Page – 210


CLEOPATRA

O girl, thy tongue rain joy upon the world,

That speaks to me of heaven!

Cleone enters.

CLEONE ((to Eunice)

They are more beautiful than heaven and earth.

(to Cleopatra)

Thy children's feet are on the palace stairs.

 

CLEOPATRA

O no! not of the palace but my heart;

I feel their tread ascending. Be still, be still,

Thou flutterer in my breast: I am a queen

And must not hear thee.

Thoas and Melitus enter bringing

in Antiochus and Timocles.

THOAS

Queen, we bring her sons

To Cleopatra.

 

CLEOPATRA

I thank you both. Approach.

Why dost thou beat so hard within to choke me?

She motions to them to stop and

gazes on them in silence.

TIMOCLES

This is my mother. She is what I dreamed!

 

EUNICE

O high inhabitants of Greek Olympus,

Which of you all comes flashing down from heaven

To snare us mortals with this earthly gaze,

These simulations of humanity?

 

Page – 211


CLEOPATRA

Say to the Syrians they shall know their king

In the gods' time and hour. But these first days

Are for a mother.

 

THOAS

None shall grudge them to thee,

Remembering the gods' debt to thee, Cleopatra.

Thoas and Melitus leave the chamber.

CLEOPATRA

My children, O my children, my sweet children!

Come to me, come to me, come into my arms.

You beautiful, you bright, you tall heart-snarers,

You are all your father.

 

TIMOCLES

Mother, my sweet mother!

I have been dreaming of you all these years,

Mother!

 

CLEOPATRA

And was the dream too fair, my child?

O strange, sweet bitterness that I must ask

My child his name!

 

TIMOCLES

I am your Timocles.

 

CLEOPATRA

You first within my arms! O right, 'tis right!

It is your privilege, my sweet one. Kiss me.

O yet again, my young son Timocles.

O bliss, to feel the limbs that I have borne

Within me! O my young radiant Timocles,

You have outgrown to lie upon my lap:

I have not had that mother's happiness.

 

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TIMOCLES

Mother, I am still your little Timocles

Playing at bigness. You shall not refuse me

The sweet dependent state which I have lost

In that far motherless Egypt where I pined.

 

CLEOPATRA

And like a child too, little one, you'ld have

All of your mother to yourself. Must I

Then thrust you from me? Let Antiochus,

My tall Antiochus have now his share.

 

RODOGUNE

He is all high and beautiful like heaven

From which he came. I have not seen before

A thing so mighty.

 

ANTIOCHUS

Madam, I seek your blessing; let me kneel

To have it.

 

CLEOPATRA

Kneel! O, in my bosom, son!

Have you too dreamed of me, Antiochus?

 

ANTIOCHUS

Of great Nicanor's widow and the Queen

Of Syria and my sacred fount of life.

 

CLEOPATRA

These are cold haughty names, Antiochus.

Not of your mother, not of your dear mother?

 

ANTIOCHUS

You were for me the thought of motherhood,

A noble thing and sacred. This I loved.

 

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CLEOPATRA

No more? Are you so cold in speech, my son?

O son Antiochus, you have received

Your father's face; I hope you have his heart.

Do you not love me?

 

ANTIOCHUS

Surely I hope to love.

 

CLEOPATRA

You hope!

 

ANTIOCHUS

O madam, do not press my words.

 

CLEOPATRA

I do press them. Your words, your lips, your heart,

Your radiant body noble as a god's

I, I made in my womb, to give them light

Bore agony. I have a claim upon them all.

You do not love me?

 

ANTIOCHUS

The thought of you I have loved,

Honoured and cherished. By your own decree

We have been to each other only thoughts;

But now we meet. I trust I shall not fail

In duty, love and reverence to my mother.

 

EUNICE

His look is royal, but his speech is cold.

 

RODOGUNE

Should he debase his godhead with a lie?

She is to blame and her unjust demand.

 

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CLEOPATRA

It is well. My heart half slew me for only this!

O Timocles, my little Timocles,

Let me again embrace you, let me feel

My child who dreamed of me for eighteen years

In Egypt. Sit down here against my knee

And tell me of Egypt, —  Egypt where I was born,

Egypt where my sweet sons were kept from me,

Dear Egypt, hateful Egypt!

 

TIMOCLES

I loved it well because it bore my mother,

But not so well, my mother far from me.

 

CLEOPATRA

What was your life there? Your mornings and your evenings,

Your dreams at night, I must possess them all,

All the sweet years my arms have lost. Did you

Rising in those clear mornings see the Nile,

Our father Nile, flow through the solemn azure

Past the great temples in the sands of Egypt?

You have seen hundred-gated Thebes, my Thebes,

And my high tower where I would sit at eve

Watching your kindred sun? And Alexandria

With the white multitude of sails! My brother,

The royal Ptolemy, did he not love

To clasp his sister in your little limbs?

There is so much to talk of; but not now!

Eunice, take them from me for a while.

Take Rodogune and call the other slaves.

Let them array my sons like the great kings

They should have been so long. Go, son Antiochus;

Go, Timocles, my little Timocles.

 

ANTIOCHUS

We are the future's greatness, therefore owe

Some duty to the grandeurs of the past.

 

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The great Antiochus lies hardly cold,

Garbed for his journey. I would kneel by him

And draw his mightiness into my soul

Before the gloomy shades have taken away

What earth could hardly value.

 

EUNICE

This was a stab.

Is there some cold ironic god at work?

 

CLEOPATRA

The great Antiochus! Of him you dreamed?

You are his nephew! Parthian, take the prince

To the dead King's death-chamber, then to his own.

 

ANTIOCHUS

She was the Parthian! Great Antiochus,

Syria thou leav'st me and her and Persia afterwards

To be my lovely captive.

He goes out with Rodogune.

 

TIMOCLES (as he follows Eunice)

Tell me, cousin, —

I knew not I had such sweet cousins here, —

Was this the Parthian princess Rodogune?

 

EUNICE

Phraates' daughter, Prince, your mother's slave.

 

TIMOCLES

There are lovelier faces then than Syria owns.

He goes out with Eunice.

CLEOPATRA

You gods, you gods in heaven, you give us hearts

For life to trample on! I am sick, Cleone.

 

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CLEONE

Why, Madam, what a son you have in him,

The joyous fair-faced Timocles, yet you are sick!

 

CLEOPATRA

But the other, oh, the other! Antiochus!

He has the face that gives my husband back to me,

But does not love me.

 

CLEONE

Yet he will be king.

You said he was the elder.

 

CLEOPATRA

Did I say it?

I was perplexed.

 

CLEONE

He will be king, a man

With a cold joyless heart and thrust you back

Into some distant corner of your house

And rule instead and fill with clamorous war

Syria and Parthia and the banks of Indus

Taking our lovers and our sons to death!

Our sons! Perhaps he will take Timocles

And offer him, a lovely sacrifice,

To the grim god of battles.

 

CLEOPATRA

My Timocles! my only joy! Oh, no!

We will have peace henceforth and bloodless dawns.

My envoys ride today.

 

CLEONE

He will recall them.

This is no man to rest in peaceful ease

While other sceptres sway the neighbouring realms.

 

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War and Ambition from his eyes look forth;

His hand was made to grasp a sword-hilt. Queen,

Prevent it; let our Timocles be king.

 

CLEOPATRA

What did you say? Have you gone mad, Cleone?

The gods would never bless such vile deceit.

O, if it could have been! but it cannot.

 

CLEONE

It must.

Timocles dead, you a neglected mother,

A queen dethroned, with one unloving child, —

Childless were better, —  and your age as lonely

As these long nineteen years have been. Then you had hope,

You will have none hereafter.

 

CLEOPATRA

If I thought that,

I would transgress all laws yet known or made

And dare Heaven's utmost anger. Gods who mock me,

I will not suffer to all time your wrongs.

Hush, hush, Cleone! It shall not be so.

I thought my heart would break with joy, but now

What different passion tugs at my heart-strings,

Cleone, O Cleone! O my sweet dreams,

Where have you gone yielding to pangs and fears

Your happy empire? Am I she who left

Laughing the death-bed of Antiochus?

She goes into her chamber.

CLEONE

We must have roses, sunlight, laughter, Prince,

Not cold, harsh light of arms. Your laurels, laurels!

We'll blast them quickly with a good Greek lie.

Where he has gone, admire Antiochus,

Not here repeat him.

 

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