Faggots, pine-nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such Her. (showing a ring). Be sure that he is now In the camp of the conquerors: behold His signet ring. Sar. 'Tis his. A worthy triad ! Poor Salemenes! thou hast died in time To see one treachery the less: this man Was thy true friend and my most trusted subject. Proceed. Her. They offer thee thy life, and freedom Of choice to single out a residence In any of the further provinces, Guarded and watch'd, but not confined in person, Sar. (ironically). The generous victors! My office, king, is sacred. That thou shouldst come and dare to ask of me I but obey'd my orders, but that Her. My life waits your breath. Yours (I speak humbly)- but it may be-yours May also be in danger scarce less imminent: Would it then suit the last hours of a line Such as is that of Nimrod, to destroy A peaceful herald, unarm'd, in his office; And violate not only all that man Holds sacred between man and manMore holy tie which links us with the gods? [act Sar. He's right.-- Let him go free. - My life's last F Shall not be one of wrath. Here, fellow, take [Gives him a golden cup from a table near. i This golden goblet, let it hold your wine, And think of me; or melt it into ingots, And think of nothing but their weight and value. Her. I thank you doubly for my life, and this Most gorgeous gift, which renders it more precious. But must I bear no answer? Sar. An hour's truce to consider. Her. Yes, I ask But an hour's? Sar. An hour's: if at the expiration of That time your masters hear no further from me, They are to deem that I reject their terms, And act befittingly. At least from thence he will depart to meet me. [Soldiers enter, and form a Pile about the Sar. Higher, my good soldiers, And thicker yet; and see that the foundation Be such as will not speedily exhaust Its own too subtle flame; nor yet be quench'd Thy vow: 't is sacred and irrevocable. Pan. Since it is so, farewell. Thou shalt see. [Exit MYRRHA. Sar. (solus). She's firm. My fathers! whom I will As ye bequeath'd it, this bright part of it, Which most personifies the soul as leaving The least of matter unconsumed before Its fiery workings: -and the light of this Not a mere pillar form'd of cloud and flame, And then a mount of ashes, but a light Search well my chamber, Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold; To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,- Pan. That royal hand! Let me then once more press it to my lips; And these poor soldiers who throng round you, and Would fain die with you! [The Soldiers and PANIA throng round him, kissing his hand and the hem of his robe. Sar. My best my last friends! Let's not unman each other-part at once: All farewells should be sudden, when for ever, Else they make an eternity of moments, And clog the last sad 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, 'tis In the hands of the deities, if such There be I shall know soon. : Farewell-Farewell. [Exeunt PANIA and Soldiers. Myr. These men were honest: it is comfort still That our last looks should be on loving faces. Sar. And lovely ones, my beautiful!—but hear me ! A people's records, and a hero's acts; A problem few dare imitate, and none MYRRHA returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand, and a Cup in the other. "And what is there An Indian widow dares for custom, which 2 [These lines are in bad taste enough, from the jingle be tween kings and kine, down to the absurdity of believing that Sardanapalus at such a moment would be likely to discuss a point of antiquarian curiosity. But they involve also an anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be assigned to the erection of the earlier pyramids, there can be no reason for apprehending that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full splendour, the destination of those immense fabrics could have been a matter of doubt to any who might inquire concerning them. Herodotus, three hundred years later, may have been misinformed of these points; but, when Sardanapalus lived, the erection of pyramids must, in all probability, have not been still of unfrequent occurrence, and the nature of their contents no subject of mistake or mystery. — HEBER.] 3 [Here an anonymous critic suspects Lord Byron of having read old Fuller, who says, in his quaint way, the pyramids, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders."] 4 [In" Sardanapalus" Lord Byron has been far more fortunate than in the " Doge of Venice," inasmuch as his subject is one eminently adapted not only to tragedy in general, but to that peculiar kind of tragedy which Lord Byron is anxious to recommend. The history of the last of the Assyrian kings is at once sufficiently well known to awaken that previous interest which belongs to illustrious names and early associations; and sufficiently remote and obscure to admit of any modification of incident or character which a poet may find convenient. All that we know of Nineveh and its sovereigns is majestic, indistinct, and mysterious. We read of an exten. sive and civilised monarchy erected in the ages immediately succeeding the deluge, and existing in full might and majesty while the shores of Greece and Italy were unoccupied, except by roving savages. We read of an empire whose influence extended from Samarcand to Troy, and from the mountains of Judah to those of Caucasus, subverted, after a continuance of thirteen hundred years, and a dynasty of thirty generations, in an almost incredibly short space of time, less by the revolt of two provinces than by the anger of Heaven and the predicted fury of natural and inanimate agents. And the influence which both the conquests and the misfortunes of Assyria appear to have exerted over the fates of the people for whom, of all others in ancient history, our strongest teelings are (from religious motives) interested, throws a sort of sacred pomp over the greatness and the crimes of the descendants of Nimrod, and a reverence which no other equally remote portion of profane history is likely to obtain with us. At the same time, all which we know is so brief, so general, and so disjointed, that we have few of those preconceived notions of the persons and facts represented which in classical dramas, if servilely followed, destroy the interest, and if rashly departed from offend the prejudices, of the reader or the auditor. An outline is given of the most majestic kind; but it is an outline only, which the poet may fill up at pleasure; and in ascribing, as Lord Byron has dore for the sake of his favourite unities, the destruction of the Assyrian empire to the treason of one night, instead of the war of several years, he has neither shocked our better knowledge, nor incurred any conspicuous improbability. ... Stal however, the developement of Sardanapalus's character s incidental only to the plot of Lord Byron's drama, and though the unities have confined his picture within far narrower limits than he might otherwise have thought advisable, the character is admirably sketched; nor is there any one of the portraits of this great master which gives us a more favourable opinion of his talents, his force of conception, his elicacy and vigour of touch, or the richness and harmony his colouring. He had, indeed, no unfavourable groundwork. even in the few hints supplied by the ancient historians, as i› the conduct and history of the last and most unfortunate of the line of Belus. Though accused (whether truly or falsely by his triumphant enemies, of the most revolting vices, as t an effeminacy even beyond what might be expected from the last dregs of Asiatic despotism, we find Sardanapalus, wh roused by the approach of danger, conducting his arms with a courage, a skill, and, for some time at least, with success not inferior to those of his most warlike ancest s We find him retaining to the last the fidelity of his re trusted servants, his nearest kindred, and no small proper tion of his hardiest subjects. We see him providing for the safety of his wife, his children, and his capital city, with ai the calmness and prudence of an experienced captain. see him at length subdued, not by man, but by Heaven and the elements, and seeking his death with a mixture of hero-T and ferocity which little accords with our notions of a weak or utterly degraded character. And even the strange story, variously told, and without further explanation scarcely in telligible, which represents him as building (or fortify. two cities in a single day, and then deforming his expleta with an indecent image and inscription, would seem to my a mixture of energy with his folly not impossible, perhaps, t the madness of absolute power, and which may lead us t impute his fall less to weakness than to an injudicious and ostentatious contempt of the opinions and prejudices of r kind. Such a character, luxurious, energetic, misanth". pical,affords, beyond a doubt, no common advantages C the work of poetic delineation; and it is precisely the charac ter which Lord Byron most delights to draw, and which h has succeeded best in drawing. — HEBER. WI I remember Lord Byron's mentioning, that the story of Sardanapalus had been working in his brain for seven years before he commenced it. — TRELAWNEY, The following is an extract from The Life of Dr. Parr "In the course of the evening the Doctor cried out —'}}• you read Sardanapalus ? Yes, Sir?'-Right; and y could n't sleep a wink after it?'--' No.' - Right, right now don't say a word more about it to-night.' The mezoPA of that tine poom seemed to act like a spell of horrible fa ch nation upon him."] [ Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 1821-Byron."— MS. "The Two Foscari" was composed at Ravenna, between the 11th of June and the 10th of July, 1821, and published with "Sardanapalus" in the following December. "The Venetian story," writes Lord Byron to Mr. Murray," is strictly bistorical. I am much mortified that Gifford don't take to my new dramas. To be sure, they are as opposite to the English drama as one thing can be to another; but I have a notion that, if understood, they will, in time, find favour (though not on the stage) with the reader. The simplicity of plot is intentional, and the avoidance of rant also, as also the compression of the speeches in the more severe situations. What I seek to show in the Foscaris' is the suppressed passions rather than the rant of the present day. For that matterNay, if thou 'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou-' would not be difficult, as I think I have shown in my younger productions-not dramatic ones, to be sure."- An account of the incidents on which this play is founded, is given in the Appendix. *] [The disadvantage, and, in truth, absurdity, of sacrificing higher objects to a formal adherence to the unities (see ante, p. 244) is strikingly displayed in this drama. The whole interest here turns upon the Younger Foscari having returned from banishment, in defiance of the law and its consequences, * [See APPENDIX: The Two Foscari, Note A.] 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? from an unconquerable longing after his own country. Now, the only way to have made this sentiment palatable, the practicable foundation of stupendous sufferings, would have been, to have presented him to the audience, wearing out his heart in exile, and forming his resolution to return, at a distance from his country, or hovering, in excruciating suspense, within sight of its borders. We might then have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives, and of so extraordinary a character. But as this would have been contrary to one of the unities, we first meet with him led from" the Question," and afterwards taken back to it in the Ducal Palace, or clinging to the dungeon-walls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them; and therefore feel more wonder than sympathy, when we are told, that these agonising consequences have resulted, not from guilt or disaster, but merely from the intensity of his love for his country. JEFFREY.] 3 [The character of Loredano is well conceived and truly tragic. The deep and settled principle of hatred which anímates him, and which impels him to the commission of the most atrocious cruelties, may seem, at first, unnatural and overstrained. But not only is it historically true; but, when the cause of that hatred (the supposed murder of his father and uncles), and when the atrocious maxims of Italian revenge, and that habitual contempt of all the milder feelings are taken into consideration which constituted the glory of a Venetian patriot, we may conceive how such a principle might be not only avowed but exulted in by a Venetian who regarded the house of Foscari as, at once, the enemies of his family and his country.— - HEBER.] Enter Guards, with young FOSCARI as prisoner, &c. Guard. Signor, take time. Jac. Fos. Let him rest. I thank thee, friend, I'm feeble; I'll stand the hazard. But thou may'st stand reproved. Guard. Jac. Fos. That 's kind: - I meet some pity, but no mercy; This is the first. Guard. And might be last, did they [does: Who rule behold us. Bar. To balance such a foe, if such there be, Lor. Orphans? What should they be who make Bar. (solus). Follow thee! I have follow'd long 2 The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch ["Veneno sublatus." The tomb is in the church of Santa Elena.] 2 [Loredano is accompanied, upon all emergencies, by a senator called Barbarigo-a sort of confidant or chorus — who comes for no end that we can discover, but to twit him with conscientious cavils and objections, and then to se True, Bar. Then deem not the laws too harsh Which yield so much indulgence to a sire As to allow his voice in such high matter As the state's safety Jac. Fos. Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath Further than thus: have transgress'd my duty Open-How feel you? Jac. Fos. There, sir, 't is Guard. And your limbs? Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength; cond him by his personal countenance and authority. — Jes FREY.] 3 [Loredano is the only personage above mediocrity. The remaining characters are all unnatural, or feeble. Barbang is as tame and insignificant a confidant as ever swept after the train of his principal over the Parisian stage. His.] |