The countryside, high ground near the city of Cepheus.

A crowd of Syrians, men and women, running in terror, among
them Chabrias, Megas, Baltis, Pasithea, Moms, Gardas, Syrax.

BALTIS (stopping and sinking down on her knees)

Ah, whither can we run where the offended
Poseidon shall not reach us.

CHABRIAS

Stop, countrymen;

Let's all die here together.

OTHERS

Let's stop and die.

MEGAS

Run, run! Poseidon's monsters howl behind.

PASITHEA

O day of horror and of punishment!

SYRAX

Let us stay here; it is high ground, perhaps
The monster will not reach us.

Damoetes enters.

DAMOETES

I have seen the terror near, and yet I live.
It vomits fire for half a league.  

SYRAX

It is

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As long as a sea-jutting promontory.

DAMOETES

It has six monstrous legs.

SYRAX

Eight, eight; I saw it.

MEGAS

Chabrias, it caught thy strong son by the foot,
And dashed his head against a stone, that all
The brains were scattered.

CHABRIAS

Alas, my son! I will
Go back and join you in the monster's jaws.

He is stopped by the others.

DAMOETES

It seized thy daughter, O Pasithea,

And tore her limbs apart, which it devoured

While yet the trunk lay screaming under its foot.

PASITHEA

Oh God!

She swoons.

ALL

Lift her up, lift her up. Alas!

MEGAS

These sorrows may be ours.

BALTIS

Ah! Heaven, my son!
I did not wake him when this news of horror
Plucked me from sleep.  

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GARDAS

My wife and little daughter
Are in my cottage where perhaps the monster
Vomits his fiery breath against the door.
I will go back.

MORUS

Let us go back, Damoetes.

DAMOETES

I'll not go back for twenty thousand wives
And children. Life is sweet.

MANY VOICES

Let us not go.

They stop Gardas.

MEGAS

What noise is that?

BALTIS

Run, run, 'tis some new horror.

All are beginning to run. Therops enters.

THEROPS

Where will you run ? Poseidon's wrath is near you
And over you and behind you and before you.
His monsters from the ooze ravage howling
Along our shores, and the indignant sea
Swelled to unnatural tumultuous mountains
Is climbing up the cliffs with spume and turmoil.

DAMOETES

O let us run a hundred leagues and live.

THEROPS

Before you is another death. Last night

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The Assyrians at three points came breaking in
Across the border and the frontier forces
Are slain. They torture, burn and violate:

Young girls and matrons, men" and boys are butchered.

Salvation is not in your front and flight

Casts you from angry gods to men more ruthless.

I wonder not that you are silent, stunned

With fear: but will you listen, countrymen,

And I will show you a cure for these fierce evils.

VOICES

Oh tell us, tell us, you shall be our king.

MEGAS

We'll set thy image by the great Poseidon's
And worship it.

THEROPS

What is the unexampled cause of wrath

Which whelms you with these horrors ? Is't not the bold

Presumptuous line of Cepheus ? Is't not your kings

Whose pride, swollen by your love and homage, Syrians,

Insults the gods, rescues Poseidon's victims

And with a sacrilegious levity

Exposes all your lives to death and woe ?

There is the fount of all your misery, Syrians,

For this the horror eats you up, — your kings.

CRIES

Away with them! throw them into the sea — let Poseidon swallow them!

THEROPS

But most I blame the fell Chaldean woman
Who rules you. What is this Cepheus but a puppet
Dressed up in royal seemings, pushed forth and danced
At her caprice? Unhappy is the land

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That women rule, that country more unhappy

That is to heartless foreigners a prey.

But thou, O ill-starred Syria, two worst evils

Hast harboured in a single wickedness-.

What cares the light Chaldean for your gods,

Your lives, your sons, yow daughters ? She lives at ease

Upon the revenues of your hard toil,

Depending on favourites, yes, on paramours, —

For why have women favourites but to ease

Their sensual longings ? — and insults your deities.

Do you not think she rescued the Chaldeans

Because they were her countrymen, and used

Her daughter, young Andromeda, for tool

That her fair childish beauty might disarm

Wrath and suspicion? then, the crime unearthed,

Braved all and set her fierce Chaldeans' swords

Against the good priest Polydaon's heart, —

You did not hear that? — the good Polydaon

Who serves Poseidon with such zeal! Therefore

The god is angry: your wives, sisters, daughters,

Must suffer for Chaldean Cassiopea.

CRIES

Let us seize her and kill, kill, kill, kill her!

DAMOETES

Bum her!

MORUS

Roast her!

MEGAS

Tear her into a million fragments.

CHABRIAS

But are they not our kings? We must obey them.

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THEROPS

Wherefore must we obey them? Kings are men,

And they are set above their fellow-mortals

To serve us, friends, — not, surely, for our hurt!

Why should our sons and daughters bleed for them,

Syrians ? Is not our blood as dear, as precious,

As human? Why should these kings, these men, go clad

In purple and in velvet while you toil

For little and are hungry and are naked.

CRIES

True, true, true!

GARDAS

This is a wonderful man, this Therops. He has a brain, countrymen.

DAMOETES

A brain! He is no cleverer than you or I, Morus.

MORUS

I should think not, Damoetes!

DAMOETES

We knew these things long ago and did not need wind-bag
Therops to tell us!

MORUS

We have talked them over often, Damoetes.

MEGAS

We'll have no more kings, countrymen.

CRIES

No kings, no kings!

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GARDAS

Or Therops shall be king.

CRIES

Yes, Therops king! Therops king!

DAMOETES

Good king Lungs! Oh, let us make him king, Morus, — he will
not pass wind in the market-place so often.

THEROPS

Poseidon is our king; we are his people.
Gods we must worship; why should we worship men
And set a heavenly crown on mortal weakness ?
They have offended against great Poseidon,
They are guilty of a fearful sacrilege.
Let them perish.

CRIES

Kill them! let us appease Poseidon.

CHABRIAS

Worship Heaven's power, but bow before the king.

THEROPS

What need have we of kings ? What are these kings ?

CHABRIAS

They are the seed of gods.

THEROPS

Then, let them settle
Themselves their quarrel with their Olympian kindred.
Why should we suffer ? Let Andromeda
Be exposed and Iolaus sacrificed;

Then shall Poseidon's wrath retire again
Into the continent of his vast billows.

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CHABRIAS

If it must be so, let it come by award
Of quiet justice.

THEROPS

Justice! They are the judges
Who did the crime. Wherefore dost thou defend them?
Thou favourest then Poseidon's enemies?

CRIES

Kill him too, kill Chabrias. Poseidon, great Poseidon! we are
Poseidon's people.

DAMOETES

Let him join his son and by the same road.

MORUS

Beat his brains out — to see if he has any. Ho! ho! ho!

THEROPS

Let him alone: he is a fool. Here comes
Our zealous good kind priest, our Polydaon.

Polydaon enters.

CRIES

Polydaon! Polydaon! the good Polydaon! Save us, Polydaon!

POLYDAON

Ah, do you call me now to save you? Last night
You did not save me when the foreign swords
Were near my heart.

MEGAS

Forgive us and protect.

DAMOETES

You, lead us to the palace, be our chief.

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MORUS

We'll have no kings: lead, you: on to the palace!

MEGAS

Poseidon shall be king, thou his vicegerent.

GARDAS

Therops at thy right hand!

CRIES

Yes, Therops! Therops!

POLYDAON

Oh, you are sane now, being let blood by scourgings!
Unhurt had been much better. But Poseidon
Pardons and I will save.

CRIES

Polydaon for ever, the good Polydaon, Poseidon's Viceroy!

POLYDAON

Swear then to do Poseidon's will.

CRIES

We swear!

DAMOETES

Command and watch the effect!

POLYDAON

Will not the tongue
Of Cassiopea once more change you, people?

DAMOETES

We'll cut it out and feed her dogs with it.

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POLYDAON

Shall Iolaus bleed? Andromeda
Be trailed through the city and upon the rocks,
As the god wills, flung naked to' his monsters ?
Cepheus and Cassiopea die ?

CRIES

They shall!

MEGAS

Not one of them shall live.

POLYDAON

Then come, my children.

DAMOETES

But the beast? Will it not tear us on the road?

POLYDAON

It will not hurt you who do Poseidon's will.
I am your safeguard; I will march in front.

CRIES

To the palace, to the palace! We'll kill the Chaldeans, strangle
Cepheus, tear the Queen to pieces.

POLYDAON

In order, in good order, my sweet children.

The mob surges out following Polydaon
and Therops: only Damoetes, Chabrias, Baltis
and Pasithea are left.

DAMOETES

Come, Chabrias, we'll have sport.

CHABRIAS

My dead son calls me.

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He goes out in another direction.

BALTIS

Pasithea, rise and come: you'll see her killed
Who is the murderess of your daughter.

PASITHEA

Let me

Stay here and die.

DAMOETES

Lift her up. Come, fool.

They go out, leading Pasithea.

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