-41_Rodogune-Act One-Scene-1.htm

Act One  

Antioch. The palace, a house by the sea.  

     SCENE I .

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From that afflicted body has withdrawn, —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
Although an enemy. If I ever slew,
I think 'twould be with pity in the blow
That it was needed.

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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

 EUNICE

Rodogune.

CLEONE

That slave!

No nobler attendance ?

EUNICE

I think I hear the speech
Of upstarts. Are you, Cleone, of that tribe?

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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.

CLEONE

Why have you left

Your mistress and your service, Rodogune ? 

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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 Irampler 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
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!

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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 hands 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

Will they arrive from Egypt?

CLEOPATRA

Ah, Eunice,
From Egypt! They are here, Eunice.

EUNICE

Here!

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

And when

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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 roads 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;

And he exiled my children. You have not been
A mother!

EUNICE

I will love with you, Cleopatra,

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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
Shall be our king in Syria?

CLEOPATRA

Both shall be kings,
My kings, my little royal faces made

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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
Is kept in heaven and our own offences
Too heavy a load for us to bear.

Rodogune and Eunice go out.

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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 Phayllys 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.

PHAYLLUS

That I knew.

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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?

CLEONE

We shall rise ?

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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. Wilt thou 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.

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