Search well my chamber, To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,- PANIA. 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. SARDANAPALus. My best! my last friends! In the hands of the deities, if such There be I shall know soon. Farewell-farewell. [Exeunt PANIA and the Soldiers. MYRRHA. These men were honest: it is comfort still That our last looks shall be on loving faces. SARDANAPALUS. And lovely ones, my beautiful!—but hear me! For yielding to thy nature: and there's time Yet for thee to escape hence. MYRRHA. Shall I light One of the torches which lie heap'd beneath The ever-burning lamp that burns without, Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall? SARDANAPALUS. Do so. Is that thy answer? MYRRHA. Thou shalt see. [Exit MYRRHA. SARDANAPALUS (solus). She's firm. My fathers! whom I will rejoin, As ye bequeath'd it, this bright part of it, And then a mount of ashes, but a light Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up MYRRHA returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand and a Cup in the other. [MYRRHA fires the pile. 'Tis fired! I come. [As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls. NOTES. Note 1. Page 291, line 19. And thou, my own Ionian Myrrha. "The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Baotians, 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. i. p. 199. Note 2. Page 294, line 1. The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, 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, Sardanapalus. The fortifications, in their magnitude and extent, 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 (for Arrian 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 recom mend immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee! king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so And that? Is yours. SARDANAPALUS. MYRRHA. 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 circumstances to abandon themselves to the intemperate [The trumpet of PANIA sounds without. joys which their prince has been supposed to have recom SARDANAPALUS. Hark! MYRRHA. SARDANAPALUS. Adieu, Assyria! I loved thee well, my own, my father's land, And better as my country than my kingdom. mended, 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 by a revolution, obloquy on his memory would follow "The inconsistency of traditions concerning Sardanapalus is striking in Diodorus's account of him.” LOREDANO. It is written thus. BARBARIGO. And will you leave it unerased? And how? LOREDANO. Till balanced. BARBARIGO. And might be the last, did they Who rule behold us. JACOPO FOSCARI. What voice is that?-t is Barbarigo's! Ah! BARBARIGO. To balance such a foe, if such there be, He judges. JACOPO FOSCARI. True, BARBARIGO. Then deem not the laws too harsh JACOPO FOSCARI. I'm faint; Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath (Two Senators pass over the Stage, as in their way to Within the Council Chamber. JACOPO FOSCARI. I ask no more than a Venetian grave Limbs! how often have they borne me A dungeon, what they will, so it be here. Bounding o er yon blue tide, as I have skimm'd Raced for our pleasure in the pride of strength, Enter an Officer. Bring in the prisoner ! OFFICER. GUARD. Signor, you hear the order. JACOPO FOSCARI. Ay, I am used to such a summons; 't is OFFICER. Be nearest to your person. JACOPO FOSCARI. You!-you are he Who yesterday presided o'er my pangs- OFFICER. As you please, signor; I dared not disobey the Council, when JACOPO FOSCARI. Bade thee stretch me on their horrid engine. I pray thee touch me not—that is, just now; OFFICER. With his wonted aspect. JACOPO FOSCARI. So doth the earth, and sky, the blue of ocean, Its merry hum of nations pierces here, Even here, into these chambers of the unknown [Exeunt JACOPO FOSCARI, Officer, euc Enter MEMMO and another Senator. MEMMO. |